Saint Vivien of Saintes

Vivien's father placed his son at court, amidst all the seductions of the world, hoping to make him lose his taste for Christian virtue and piety. Be that as it may, Maurella had the happiness of seeing her son's innocence and faith escape the perils that threatened them. He was sixteen when she entrusted his education to Saint Ambrose, the n Bishop of Sa saint Ambroise Predecessor of Vivien to the episcopal see of Saintes. intes. Under the guidance of this holy prelate, Vivien made rapid progress in sacred and profane letters. It was then that his father, seeking to dazzle his young soul with the lure of honors and dignities, obtained for him the title and office of Count of the Santones. The young count saw in it only duties to fulfill, only opportunities to practice charity and to render important services to his country. Under his paternal government and prudent administration, Saintes regained a new luster and shone in the first rank among the cities of Aquitaine. But this office, which Vivien had accepted only out of fear and to prevent his father from going to extremes against him, he soon rid himself of. Yielding to a sudden inspiration, he renounced all the honors that the world promised him. He was soon ordained a reader by Saint Ambrose, his bishop, who attached him to himself and had him pass successively through the lower orders within the time required by the laws of the Church. Finally, having reached his thirty-third year, he was raised to the priesthood.

Immediately after the death of Saint Ambrose, the votes of the bishops of the province, the clergy, the senate, and the people fell unanimously upon Vivien to raise him to the episcopal see. The humility of the holy priest was alarmed by this, but it had to yield to the public will. In these unhappy times when the fall of the Roman Empire and the continuous incursions of the barbarians multiplied calamities, bishops were usually the only defenders of the oppressed, the only support of the weak. Their house was the asylum of the proscribed and the fugitives, their inexhaustible charity the only resource for public misery. Such was Vivien, making himself all things to all men, like the Apostle. He lived in community with his clerics, and did not delay in laying with them the foundations of a monastery and a basilica in honor of the Prince of the Apostles. In a heavenly vision, the angels made him understand that he should make the new church the cathedral of his diocese. This monastery and this basilica, built in the ancient Roman city, later became a conventual priory of the Canons Regular of Saint Augustine, which was united to the bishopric, and, lastly, to the major seminary of Saintes.

During the year 419, the Emperor Honorius had been forced to abandon our province of Aquitaine to the Visigoths of Spain. Toulouse became their capital, and from that time an era of calamities and persecutions began. Passionately attached to Arianism, these peoples, though less barbaric than many others, had only antipathy for Catholicism and Roman customs. On every occasion, they treated the orthodox as the Huguenots would have treated them in the 16th century, and the revolutionaries in the 18th, covering the country in ruins and blood. To spare them from the profanation of the heretics, the inhabitants of Saintes had been forced to destroy several of the architectural masterpieces that were the glory of their city: those especially that, under the ramparts, could have offered a refuge to the enemy, were sacrificed for the common safety. Finally, pushed to the limit by exactions and the most unworthy vexations, the citizens took up arms in 450 and drove out the officers of Theodoric I. The latter, outraged with anger, rushe d in, ravagin Théodoric Iᵉʳ King of the Visigoths who besieged Saintes. g all the cities in his path, and came to lay siege to Saintes. His vigorous attack soon reduced the inhabitants to dire straits; their walls crumbled under the efforts of the siege engines. Iron, fire, and pillage devastated everything, and the wealth of the country was absorbed into the abyss of the victor's insatiable greed. To all these disasters, Theodoric added servitude; he took all the notables of Saintes captive to Toulouse, in the hope that deprivation and mistreatment would sooner or later rid him of the most significant ones, whose lands and treasures he promised to deliver as prey to his officers.

A pastor such as Saint Vivien could not abandon his sheep in such distress: he resolved to share their exile and their miseries, so as not to deprive them of the resources of his charity, and to protect their faith in peril in the midst of the heretics. With no other weapons than prayer and the austerities of a penitent life, he undertook this long and perilous journey following the captives; and wishing to crush the pomp of the heretics with his humility, he contented himself, for all his equipment, with a crude cart pulled by two oxen.

Upon his arrival in Toulouse, his first care was to commend himself to the blessed Saturnin, pontiff and martyr of that city. He chose his dwelling in a small vill age in the surroundi bienheureux Saturnin First bishop and martyr of Toulouse. ngs, close enough to be within reach of helping his brothers, and solitary enough to be able to live there in peace, sheltered from persecution and far from the tumult of the capital. It was there that he spent his nights in prayer, asking the Lord for the deliverance of his dear diocesans.

While our Saint was thus giving himself to prayer and works of charity, a thief stole the oxen that had pulled his cart during the journey and hid them in a remote place. Suddenly, this man felt his feet fixed to the ground by an invisible force. At the same time, a bright light shone at the place where he had hidden his loot. Recognizing in these wonders the hand of God striking him, he found himself forced to confess his crime and to implore his pardon by prostrating himself at the feet of the holy bishop, who nevertheless had no authority to punish him. Vivien welcomed him with gentleness, even offered him money to help him live without resorting to theft, encouraging him to earn henceforth by his work enough to subsist honestly.

This admirable trait reached the ears of the king: Theodoric wanted to see Vivien. He had him summoned to the palace and did him the signal honor of inviting him to his table with other prelates who were in Toulouse. Despite his reluctance for the company and the favors of this heretical prince, the holy Bishop believed he should accept, in order to secure favorable access to Theodoric, in the interest of the Saintongeais prisoners.

At the time of the meal, all the bishops present, Arians for the most part, offered the cup to the monarch in succession, following the custom of the time. When it was Vivien's turn, he refused to take the cup, without worrying about the displeasure that his refusal caused the king. The latter, in fact, became furious. "Prince," the noble pontiff then said to him with dignity, "minister of the altars, I cannot offer the chalice of the altars except to the children of the Church; and, unless there is a sincere return to orthodoxy, I cannot therefore render you the honor you expected of me."

This language, truly episcopal, only inflamed Theodoric's anger. In his temper, he swore to take a striking and bloody vengeance for what he regarded as an insult, instead of seeing it as a salutary lesson that deserved his gratitude, and which a bishop according to the heart of God owed him in conscience.

Vivien, calm in the midst of the storm, left the table and went to the church of the holy martyr Saturnin. Theodoric, drunk with anger and orgies, had already fallen asleep when the venerable prelate granted a little rest to his body, tired by the length and the genuflections of the night office. At this moment, through the merits of the blessed Saturnin, he appeared in a dream to the king of the Visigoths, and struck him with such terror that when the latter, half-dead with fright, had emerged from this overwhelming sleep, the anger and threats of the day before gave way to feelings of respect and benevolence for the bishop of Saintes. The prince, who previously breathed only bloodthirsty fury, had become, under the empire of the grace of Jesus Christ, gentle, humble, and suppliant. In the morning, Vivien was summoned to the king. Theodoric, upon seeing him, apologized for the scenes of anger he had displayed the day before, and to gain the confidence of the Prelate, he was the first to speak to him of the motive for his trip to Toulouse. "Blessed Pontiff," he said to him, "please forget the excesses of our temper. In reparation, we grant you the object of your desires. We are disposed to refuse nothing that may be agreeable to you." At this language, the holy Bishop understood that God alone could have thus changed this proud heart and calmed this violent and vindictive soul. He therefore asked without hesitation for the deliverance of his dear diocesans. It was granted to him on the spot, and they were even returned the goods that had been taken from them. Vivien returned with them to Saintes, taking with him for his part only the merits of his good deeds. The return of the captives to their homes was greeted by the most enthusiastic demonstrations: from all sides, there were cries of joy from the city that saw its children again, and thanksgivings from the Church of Saintes, happy to receive its holy and charitable pastor.

Later, another circumstance offered Saint Vivien a new opportunity to signal his generous devotion to his people. Countless Saxon pirates were devastat ing al Saxons Pirates who attacked Saintonge. l points of the Ocean coastline. One of their fleets came to land in Saintonge, in a place named Marciac, according to ancient historians. The entire invaded region was put to fire and sword. The thirst for richer loot soon pushed the Saxons toward Saintes, which they hoped to surprise. Unable to resist the superior forces of this swarm of barbarians, the inhabitants were nevertheless not disconcerted; they had already experienced the efficacy of the prayers of their holy Pontiff; they had recourse to him as their best defender. The Saxons, however, surrounded the city; their machines were already set up to batter the ramparts, when, suddenly, all the defenses of the place appeared to them covered with countless combatants whose threatening attitude disconcerted them. The Saxons felt no more strength for resistance than for attack: on all points, they were seen retreating, asking for peace and crying for mercy. They precipitously returned to Marciac and re-embarked, loudly attributing their rout to a celestial power swayed by the prayers of some virtuous man. Vivien, indeed, had obtained through his merits and his powerful intercession the deliverance of his homeland without bloodshed. The name of the holy Bishop soon became famous, and one saw a crowd of the afflicted, for whom he was the sole resource, flocking from all sides.

The day was approaching when Vivien would leave this life. He had the happiness, before dying, of seeing the completion of the basilica he was raising in honor of Saint Peter, and for which he had received from heaven the order and inspiration to make it the episcopal church, as we have reported above. The edifice, admirable for its proportions and the richness of its architecture, stood on the hillside where the diocesan seminary was built in the 18th century. This place was already, in the time of Saint Gregory of Tours, a suburb of Saintes.

Vivien prepared to perform the solemn dedication of the new cathedral. The spirit of prophecy, with which God favored him, made known to him the day of his approaching end. He therefore took measures so that his own funeral would coincide with the consecration of his basilica, and summoned the neighboring bishops in time. In the meantime, he called to him the people of his household, lay and ecclesiastical, gave each the kiss of peace, indicated the day of his death, and prescribed the manner in which he wished his body to be placed in the tomb. For three days he did not cease to exhort his clergy to remain united by the bonds of perfect charity, to fight with advantage in favor of the true religion. On the third day, in the presence of the invited bishops and the clerics of the various orders, abandoning his body to the earth, he rendered his soul to heaven where it went to receive, in the assembly of the angels, the garment of immortal glory.

At the news of this death, mourning was general in the city and throughout the region. A ray of divine consolation nevertheless shone in the midst of the general sadness: Vivien, it was said, has gone to receive in the heavenly homeland the glorious reward due to his merits, and from the abode of eternal bliss, he will still make us feel his ever-compassionate kindness and his paternal protection. It was therefore judged that since his soul was in heaven, it was fitting that his body be joined to the holy relics prepared for the consecration of the new altars. The deposition of Saint Vivien thus took place on the same day as this august ceremony, of which it even formed a part. It was the 28th of the month of August 460, according to some historians.

Saint Vivien could be depicted: 1st, raising a dead man: this miracle performed by the Saint on an inhabitant of Saintes has indeed provided the subject for a painting that can be seen in the parish church of Pons; 2nd, healing a wretch black with leprosy; 3rd, tracing the sign of the cross on the lifeless body of a child whom a viper had bitten, and returning him full of health to his grieving parents.

[APPENDIX: CULT AND RELICS.]

Every year, for many centuries, pilgrims came in crowds, on August 28, to venerate the relics of the holy Bishop. It is only in recent years that the Church of Saintes has celebrated his feast on this date, consecrated by a tradition fourteen centuries old. Saint-Vivien's Day was for Saintonge one of those remarkable times of the year that were designated in public acts as a deadline. Devotion to this admirable Pontiff was, at all times, so popular that his former diocese counted no less than seventeen parish churches dedicated to him. A certain number are still found in the dioceses of Bordeaux, Angoulême, Agen, and Bayonne. On the edge of the forest of Bonon, there existed a monastery of Fontevrault nuns, whose chapel, called Saint-Divien, can still be seen. Near Aigrefeuille-d'Aulnis, there was also a convent of men under the same name. Nothing remains of the latter but the name Saint-Bien, an abbreviation frequently noted, especially outside our diocese.

The Chapter of Saintes honored Saint Vivien with a very special devotion. Each year, on the eve of the Saint's feast, in the evening, a deputation of Canons would go in procession to his church to sing Matins there, in great solemnity, with the local clergy whose chaplain presided over the choir. This feast was among those celebrated with an octave in the old cathedral of Saintes.

In the 15th century, Bishop Eusebius undertook to rebuild the church of Saint-Vivien on a larger plan. Death prevented him from completing his work. Emerinus, his successor, lacking sufficient resources to finish this sumptuous edifice, had recourse to the generosity of his metropolitan, Saint Leontius the Younger. This illustrious prelate, at the moment of being raised to the episcopate, was bound by the ties of marriage to Placidine, a princess of imperial blood. By mutual consent, the two spouses separated to live in continence, when the Church of Bordeaux had chosen Leontius as its first pastor. Placidine had been the first to suggest to her husband to accept this dignity in the interest of Catholicism. From that day on, Leontius and Placidine used their immense revenues to build and endow churches. One of the most beautiful monuments of their pious liberality was the church of Saint-Vivien of Saintes, whose splendor and elegance inspired Saint Venantius Fortunatus to write beautiful verses in praise of the general founders. Magnificent paneling adorned the interior of the new sanctuary. A skilled artist had sculpted figures of animals there with such truth that one would have thought them alive, says the poet. The tomb of the Saint was especially of marvelous richness. It was covered with plates of chased silver and inlaid with gold, and the art with which these precious metals were combined singularly enhanced its brilliance.

The entire body of Saint Vivien was kept in this church until the 9th century. At that time, by one of those stratagems that the piety of the time believed itself permitted, monks from the monastery of Figeac managed to steal a considerable part of the holy Bishop's relics and brought them to their abbey, where the y perf Figeac Place where a portion of the relics was transferred. ormed numerous miracles. The author of the account of this theft reports several of which he was an eyewitness in two Councils where these precious relics had been carried in great pomp. These Councils are those of Clermont, in Auvergne, and of Limoges, both assembled to regulate what was then called the Truce of God.

These same relics of Saint Vivien were taken from the treasury of Figeac, in 1229, by order of Bertrand de Cardaillac, Bishop of Cahors, to be solemnly exposed to the veneration of the faithful. In the 15th century, Guy de Rochechouart, Bishop of Saintes, sent a portion of those kept in the latter city to the parish church, erected in Rouen for several centuries, under the name of Saint Vivien. The signal graces that had often been obtained there had made this sanctuary famous.

In the 16th century, the church of Saint-Vivien of Rouen was burned by the Protestants with all the relics it contained; in Saintes, the tomb and the church of the holy Bishop suffered the same fate.

Excerpt from the Religious Bulletin of La Rochelle and Saintes.