Severus, Saint, Bishop of Ravenna

SEVERO, VESCOVO DI RAVENNA, SANTO

Feast day: 1 February

SEVERUS, Saint, Bishop of Ravenna. - He is the last of the 12 bishops of Ravenna called "colombini" because, according to legend, they were designated for election by a dove that settled on their head. This is said to have happened to S., a simple weaver, who was present at the assembly gathered to elect the bishop.

The duration of his episcopate is unknown; it is known, however, that he took part in the Council of Sardica (343), whose canons and synodal letter to Pope Julius he signed (Mansi, III, 39, 42). M. on February 1, and his death day is entered in the Hieronymian Martyrology, which also commemorates him on January 1 through an error. He was buried in the cemetery of the "Vicus Salutaris," outside Classe, and over his tomb a chapel called that of St. Ruffillus arose. His cult established itself very early, so much so that the bishops Peter III (578) and John II (578-95) erected for him a grand basilica "in regione quae dicitur Salutaris," later called Severiana, destroyed in the 15th century. John II transferred there the relics of S., of Vincentia and Innocentia, respectively the wife and daughter of S., and placed them in a sarcophagus in the center of the Basilica. Relics of S. were found again, in 1871, in the silver capsella (5th century) of Grado. In Germany the cult of S. spread following the transfer of his relics to Mainz and then to Erfurt through the work of Archbishop Otgar (826-47), who purchased them at Pavia from the Frankish cleric Felix, who had stolen them before 830. The oldest biographical documents we have on S. are the notice of Agnellus (ca. 830-32) and the Vita, followed by the translatio, of the Mainz priest Liutolf (shortly after 856: ed. L. v. Heinemann, in MGH. Scriptores, XV, 1 [1887], pp. 289-93). The archbishop of Mainz Charles (856-63) granted part of the relics of St. Innocentia to the nuns of Altenmünster.

SEVERUS, bishop of RAVENNA, saint - 6th-century mosaic depicting St. S. Ravenna, church of S. Apollinare in Classe.(phot. Anderson)

He is the patron of weavers and wool-spinners and of police guards. The Roman Martyrology commemorates him on February 1.

Bibliography9 works

BIBL.: all the hagiographic texts on S. in BHL, 7679-84, Supplementum, p. 279; Martyr. Hieronymianum, pp. 21, 72; Martyr. Romanum, pp. 44-45; Agnello, Codex Pontif. Eccles. Ravennatis (ed. A. Testi Rasponi in RIS, II, parte 3°, Bologna 1924), I, pp. 42-56, for the Basilica Severiana cf. pp. 226, 243-44; F. Lanzoni, S. S. vesc. di Ravenna nella stor. e nella leggenda, in Atti e mem. della R. Dep. di st. patr. per la prov. di Romagna, 1911, pp. 325-96; 1912, pp. 350-96; H. Delehaye, L'hagiographie ancienne de Ravenne, in Anal. Boll., 46 (1929), p. 26; G. Lucchesi, Note agiograf. sui primi vesc. di Ravenna, Faenza 1941 (estr. dal Boll. dioc. di Faenza), pp. 81-95. For the iconography, cf. K. Künste, Ikonographie der christl. Kunst, II, Friburgo in Br. 1926, pp. 531-32; J. Braun, Tracht und Attribute der Heiligen in der deutschen Kunst, Stoccarda 1943, coll. 636-58.

A. Pietro Frutaz

@incollection{ec11_severo_vescovo_di_ravenna_sant, author = {Frutaz, Amato Pietro}, title = {Severo, vescovo di ravenna, santo}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {XI}, pages = {466--467}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1953}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/severo-vescovo-di-ravenna-santo} }

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