SIMONE di TREVIRI, saint. - A native of Siracusa and, after various wanderings, a monk on Mount Sinai, he settled in France after escaping many dangers.
He first stayed in Aquitania, then in Normandia, where he arrived in the year following the death of his protector, Duke Riccardo (1027). He therefore went to Verdun to meet Abbot Riccardo, whom he had known in Jerusalem; then to Treviri, where he lived as an anchorite. Archbishop Poppone gave him the blessing for recluses and allowed him to withdraw into a tower near the famous “Porta Nigra”; but, taken for a magician, he ran the risk of being stoned by the people. He died on 1 June 1935. He was perhaps canonized at Christmas 1935. Feast day: 1 June.
BIBL.: E. Sackur, Richard, abt von S. Vannes, Parigi 1886, pp. 93-98; H. Dauphin, Le bienheureux Richard, abbé de S. Vannes de Verdun, Parigi 1946 (v. indici); Martyr. Romanum, pp. 219-20; M. Coens, Un document inédit sur le culte de St Syméon, moine d'Orient et reclus à Trèves, in Anal. Bull., 68 (1950), pp. 181-96. Enrico Tribout de Merembart