Saint Savinian

His history relates that the Spirit of God drove him from the East to the West, and from Greece to France, where he stopped in a place not far from Troyes, in Champagne; there, while praying, he suddenly saw himself surrounded by a cloud, from which an unknown person conferred upon him the grace of holy baptism. But we would more willingly hold to the tradition of the country, according to which our Saint, having arrived at this place, met Saint Parre, a citizen o saint Parre Saint cited in comparison for the miracle of cephalophory. f the same city, and, since then, a martyr of Jesus Christ; the latter either conferred holy Baptism upon him with his own hands, or took care to have it administered to him. Be that as it may, it is certain that he began to lead a completely heavenly life on earth. Feeling driven by the same Spirit that had brought him to France, he began to preach the Gospel with such courage that an infinite number of people, won over by his preaching, which God supported with the power of miracles, abandoned the worship of idols and converted to the Christian religion: at one time, there were nearly eleven hundred people who embraced Christianity and were baptized through his ministry.

At that same time, Emperor Aurelian h l'empereur Aurélien Gallo-Roman nobleman and ambassador of Clovis. ad entered Gaul with the intention of repelling the Barbarians who were ravaging it and forcing them to lift the siege of the city of Augsburg. This prince, who was an extreme enemy of the Christians, passing through the city of Troyes, soon learned what Savinian was doing there, and the great number of people he was winning over to Jesus Christ each day. After the martyrdom of Saint P arre, or Patrocle Saint cited in comparison for the miracle of cephalophory. Patroclus, he also had this stranger from Samos seized, toward whom he first used fine words and great promises, if he would leave the religion of the Christians to worship his false gods; but seeing that his speeches had no power over this invincible soul, he turned all his thoughts to cruelty and torture, in order to obtain by force what he could not obtain by gentleness. After this first attempt, Aurelian sent the Martyr to prison, where forty-eight soldiers who were guarding him were converted to the faith and baptized by Saint Savinian; God showing through his wonders that, if the limbs of his servants can be restrained by bonds and handcuffs, the word he places in their mouths cannot be bound, as the Apostle says. Such were the first fruits of the martyrdom of our Saint, which he sent, as so many victims, to be presented before the majesty of the eternal God; for these forty-eight neophytes sealed their confession of faith with their own blood, which they shed for Jesus Christ, the emperor having had them all beheaded in the presence of Savinian, in order to intimidate him; but finding him still invincible, he prepared to treat him with greater rigor.

Firstly, he had him beaten while naked with sticks and thick ropes, with such cruelty that there remained no part of his body that did not have its own wound; and yet the tyrant mocked him, telling him that all this was still nothing compared to what would follow; but the Martyr, as if his body had been made of bronze, replied constantly that, just as the earth is all the more fertile the more carefully it is tilled, all these cruelties would do nothing but make him happier and produce new fruits of the Gospel. The emperor, irritated by these words, had his head covered with a red-hot helmet; but God preserving him from this torment, he received no harm from it; which was the cause of the conversion of three people who were witnessing this spectacle: for, boldly pointing out to the emperor the evil he was committing in treating such a holy man in this way, as a reward, they themselves immediately received the crown of martyrdom. Our Saint, encouraged by these favors from heaven, reproached this prince for the weakness of his torments, and showed him what the virtue of Jesus Christ was when He wished to manifest it in consideration of His servants. These remonstrances only embittered the emperor; he had Savinien placed on a bed of iron, under which a great brazier was lit, in order to make him lose his life through the rigor of this element; but God, who preserved the three children in the furnace under King Nebuchadnezzar, also delivered the Saint from this torment, and the fire had no hold on him this time either. Aurelian, far from yielding to these wonders, persisting ever more in his malice, had the Saint tied to a post in order to make him a target for the arrows of his entire army; but God, through a continuation of His marvels, turned the arrows aside so much that not one struck his body; on the contrary, one of them wounded the emperor in the eye: then, indignant to the point of rage, and no longer knowing what to do with Savinien, he had him taken back to prison, waiting for some new invention to come to him to torment this innocent victim.

However, the Saint, desiring to receive the crown of martyrdom in the very place where he had received the grace of baptism, prayed to God who had preserved him from fire and arrows, that it might please Him to detach him from the bonds that held him in prison, and immediately his chains broke, and the prison opened miraculously; so that, passing through his guards, he went free to the place he desired. In the morning, Aurelian, having learned of his prisoner's escape, immediately sent a squad of soldiers after him, with orders to behead him wherever they might encounter him. They, obeying their cruel master, pursued Savinian so closely that they met him along the Seine, Savinien Brother of Saint Sabina, martyr at Troyes. which was overflowing. Then Our Lord, to show that nothing can hinder His designs for the deliverance of His servants, as He had preserved the Martyr in the midst of the flames, also made him walk upon the waters, which firmed up under his feet. But what makes the miracle more surprising is that, being on the other side, and seeing that the soldiers could not cross, he prayed to God, and obtained the same privilege for his own persecutors; because if our Saint had escaped from prison, it was not with the intention of avoiding martyrdom, but rather to go and seek it and to be baptized in his blood in the very place where the baptism of water had been conferred upon him in an extraordinary manner, as has been said. Thus he encouraged the executioners to carry out the emperor's orders, which were to cut off his head: which was done at Rilly, on January 24, although the Roman Martyrology marks his memory only on the 29th, in the year of Our Lord 275, according to Baronius, followed by Camusat and by des Guerrois, both authors from the region.

After this execution, the holy Martyr, to verify in his own person this word of Jesus Christ: "He who believes in me shall live, even after his death," rose from the ground and carried his head for the space of forty paces, to the place where he wa s to be buried, to the great astonishm porta sa tête l'espace de quarante pas The act of a martyr carrying their own head after decapitation. ent of the pagans who could not sufficiently admire the wonders that God works through His Saints.

Saint Savinian had a sister named Sa vina, Savine Virgin from the East, sister of Saint Savinian, honored in Troyes. who also followed him to France as far as Troyes, where, after a long life spent near her brother's tomb, she ended her days so happily that she is also recognized and honored there as a Saint on August 29.

He is represented decapitated or, rather, with his throat pierced by a sword.

## RELICS AND MONUMENTS.

For a long time, the burial place of Saint Savinien remained unknown due to the violence of the persecution. However, a widow named Syre, whom some wrongly claim to be the sister of Saint Fincre, but who lived in the vicinity of Troyes, hearing of the many miracles performed for those who sought the protection of our Saint, had herself taken to Rilly, where it was known his martyrdom had taken place. She implored Savinien to obtain for her the grace of recovering the sight she had lost many years prior. She had not finished her prayer before she was already answered. This miracle drew a crowd of people to Rilly from all parts. The earth was excavated at the spot where the blind woman had knelt, and the body of Saint Savinien was found, free from all corruption and exhaling a scent of delicious perfumes everywhere.

In gratitude for the signal benefit she had received from God through the intercession of His servant, Syre, aided by the offerings of the faithful, had a chapel built in honor of Saint Savinien and erected a tomb for him, near which she spent the rest of her days in the exercises of piety. It is from this widow that the village of Rilly bears the name of Sainte-Syre Sainte-Syre Site of the martyrdom of Saint Savinian, later renamed Sainte-Syre. today.

The body of Saint Savinien was transported to the cathedral through the care of Bish op Ragnégia Ragnégialle Bishop of Troyes who translated the relics. lle; only a small portion of it remains today.

Some parishes of the diocese of Troyes also received small fragments, among others those of Sainte-Savine, Saint-Parre-aux-Tertres, and the Maison des Champs.

Saint Savinien is the patron saint of Balnot-sur-Laignes and Sainte-Syre in the same diocese. — The Middle Ages entrusted the admirable stained glass windows of the cathedral of Troyes with the task of retelling to future generations, in a brilliant and rich language, the life and death of Saint Savinien, as we have just recounted them.

The life of Saint Savinien and Saint Savine, which was collected from the old manuscripts of the Church of Troyes and that of Trier, can be seen in the third volume of the Acts of the Saints, by Bollandus, as well as in the book of the Christian Holiness of the Church of Troyes, composed by Nicolas des Guerrets, which we have already cited. The same Goisbert, at the beginning of the 14th century, retouched and amplified the Acts of Saint Savinien, the oldest text of which is by the vizier Vives. As one finds in this second Life precious details, which are not in the first, we believe we must reproduce them here according to the naive translation given by Desguerrois in the 14th century. The Christian Holiness, containing the Lives, death and miracles of several Saints of France, and other countries, whose relics are in the Diocese and City of Troyes, with the Ecclesiastical History, not yet printed, nor brought to light... (In Troyes, 1 vol. in-4°, 1657.)

- Having consulted the will of God, by the grace of Jesus Christ and the guidance of his Angel, Savinien leaves his country and his father, and, after having passed through many regions of Greece, Dalmatia, and Italy, arrives in the Gauls and makes his way to Troyes in Champagne, to take up his residence there, according to the revelation of the Holy Spirit that he had received. With his own hands, he builds himself a small hut on the bank of the river (the Seine), neither too far nor too close to the city. Our good and true Fathers have left us, by ancient tradition, that Saint Savinien, having arrived in Troyes from Greece around the year of grace 371, stuck his staff into the ground and built a small dwelling near the place where the monastery of Fovet is, from which it took its name — as one might say Foy-les (felicium to fée). If I may be permitted to express my thought, I would rather estimate (I would think) that having come to this city of Troyes, and having retired to the bank of the Seine, his staff stuck there in the ground and miraculously turning green, as Aaron's rod once did in the ark, this Saint was recognized by Saint Parre (Putracle), his contemporary, and received by him into his house; and as Saint Savinien perceived that the Christian faith was in the soul and in the family of Saint Parre, he gave thanks to God that the faith was here, from which the place was named Foiey. There are in these things good encounters and conjectures, for these two Saints flourished at the same time, and were martyred in the same month of January, the year 275, by the same emperor Aurelian, by the same punishment, the sword — although on different days and in different places... A convent of hospital nuns, under the rule of Saint Augustine, was established at Foiey in the 14th century: in 1475, they joined the Order of the Intervault and followed its rule until 1793.