Saint Ursicinus

But, as these impious men held power in their hands, being in great favor with the emperor, they tore Ursicin from his sheepfold, to have more freedom to enter it and wreak their havoc. Du Saussay, in his martyrology, says that he was deposed, along with Saint Hilary and other orthodox prelates, at the conciliabulum of Béziers (356), which Saturninus, Archbishop of Arles, infected with the poison of Arianism, had assembled to create a formula of faith contrary to the symbol of the Council of Nicaea, and that he was subsequen tly rel Phrygie Region of origin of Saint Florence in Asia Minor. egated to Phrygia. He went there, not as an exile, but as an apostle who carries the light of truth everywhere; and, because it was there that the heresy had the most credit, being received in almost all the cities, he had occasion on all sides to exercise his zeal and to display his erudition and firmness in the discussions he was obliged to sustain. Both the particular place of his exile and the evils he endured there are unknown: they could only have been very great, since he was always in unknown lands and in the midst of his cruelest enemies; but he finally returned to his diocese, either by the order of Constantius, who did not wish to have such a powerful adversary in the East, or after his death and at the beginning of the reign of Julian the Apostate, who revoked all the decrees of banishment of his predecessor. He then employed the rest of his life in the functions of a pastor, applying himself faithfully, and with all his strength, to destroying the remnants of idolatry, to civilizing the Christian people, to impressing upon them a horror of vice and a love of virtue, and above all to making himself the form and model of his flock.

The tradition of the Church of Sens holds that Saint Hilary, having also returned from his banishment, visited him, and it is believed that the church of Saint-Hilaire, in Sens, was built on the site where this blessed bishop lodged. Finally, Saint Ursicin ended his life happily, to go and receive in heaven the reward for his labors and his confession; this occurred on July 24, towards the end of the 4th century.

The Roman Martyrology makes mention of him. Baronius makes him the successor of Saint Polycarp, who is not, however, found in the order of the archbishops of Sens. Du Saussay places him after Saint Severinus, who attended the Councils of Sardica and Cologne. But the Messieurs de Sainte-Marthe place four more bishops between Saint Severinus and Saint Ursicin: just as they also place three between Saint Ursicin and Saint Agrice, to whom Sidonius Apollinaris wrote in the year 372. But it may be that some of these prelates were only chorepiscopi. In the list of the bishops of Sens that we have received from that bishopric, Saint Ursicin is the ninth: 1st Saint Savinian; 2nd Saint Potentian; 3rd Leontius; 4th Audat; 5th Heraclian; 6th Lunarius; 7th Simplicius; 8th Severinus; 9th Saint Ursicin; 10th Theodore; 11th Siclin; 12th Saint Ambrose; 13th Saint Agrice, etc.

Acta Sanctorum, and local notes.