VITTRICIÒ (Victricius), bishop of ROUEN, saint. — Born ca. 330 on the extreme borders of the Empire (Britain or Gaul?), bishop of Rouen from ca. 385 to ca. 407–409. Feast day 7 Aug.
He entered the military career, but, having converted to Christianity, he publicly abandoned the army, thereby placing his life in jeopardy; he miraculously escaped the death penalty, having been pardoned by Caesar Julian (361) or by the emperor Valentinian (366–67), on the occasion of one of their stays in Gaul. He enjoyed the friendship of St Ambrose, St Martin of Tours, and St Paulinus of Nola, with whom he met at Vienne ca. 386. The Christian community of Rouen chose him as bishop ca. 385, and V. Gaul, both for his apostolic zeal in converting the pagans (he extended his missionary activity as far as Morinia and probably to Menapia and Nervia in Belgica II), and for his struggle against Arianism. In 396 he was summoned to Britain by the bishops of the region to make peace among them. He introduced monastic life into his diocese, for men and women, founded several rural churches, and rebuilt his Cathedral, furnishing it with a considerable number of relics that he received on two occasions. The solemn reception of the second group of relics (15 Apostles and martyrs; 8 on the first occasion) gave him ca. 396 the opportunity to compose the De laude sanctorum (PL 20, 443–58; the edition by E.-P. Sauvage-A. Tougard, Paris 1895, does not provide a better text; the variants indicated by A. Wilmart, Un ms. oublié de l'opuscule de s. Victrice, in Rev. bénéd., 31 [1914–19], pp. 333–42, should be taken into account). In it V. expounds, with elegant style and assured learning, above all the question of the veneration of the saints and of relics. Nothing of his correspondence has survived. In 403 he had to appear in Rome to clear himself of an accusation of a doctrinal nature; Pope Innocent I, fully satisfied with his justification, shortly afterward addressed to him the important decretal of 15 Feb. 404 (PL 20, 470–81; Jaffé-Wattenbach, 286), which V. widely disseminated. V. has also been proposed as creed (v.), whose concepts and expressions are found in the fine profession of faith placed at the beginning of the De laude sanctorum (PL 20, 446–47).
Episodes from the life of V., besides the autobiographical references in the De laude sanctorum, are known from the letters XVIII, of 399, and XXXVII, of 403, of Paulinus of Nola (ed. G. V. Hartel, in CSEL, XXIX [1894], pp. 328–37, 316–23), and from the Dialogus (III, II: PL 20, 213) of Sulpicius Severus.