Saint Prudentius

The executioners tore the martyr's body from the sepulcher where the Christians had buried him and threw it as fodder to birds of prey and unclean animals. But God, who guards the bones of the Saints, kept the beasts away and allowed the faithful to rescue it from profanation and bury it secretly. When peace returned to the Church, they hastened to place the holy relics in a tomb with the instrument of martyrdom and to raise an oratory or church above it. This small church was burned by the Saracens in the 8th century, and its revenues were given by Charles Martel to one of his men-at-arms. Now, in 882, Gédon, Bishop of Langres, returning from Santiago de Compostela, stopped to spend the night in an inn near Narbonne, and there he learned that Saint Prudent, martyr, rested in a nearby chapel. He went there immediately to venerate him and recite Matins; he opened the reliquary placed behind the altar and knelt with respect. Seeing this reliquary crumbling into dust and the linens rotting, he wept, and in his sorrow, he had the thought of taking the relics away in order to honor them better: "O holy martyr," he said aloud, "how happy we would be if you would consent to follow us!"

Responding to this desire, the prelate's chaplain, a very learned man of skillful eloquence, represented to him that, given the abandonment of the relics in a ruined chapel where the holy mysteries are celebrated only once a year, it is permissible to take them with the intention of rendering them the worship that is their due. The bishop allowed himself to be persuaded and, without further discussion, took the sacred bones and hastened toward Burgundy. Upon arriving in his diocese, he announced to the people the treasure he was bringing; immediately a large crowd followed him, and miracles attested to the martyr's power and his joy at being thus glorified. On October 6, 883, the pious bishop deposited the relics at the monastery of Bèze, a nd to provide for monastère de Bèze Primary site for the preservation of the saint's relics in Burgundy. the expenses incurred by the influx of pilgrims, he granted the monks "the prebend of Saint-Mamès of Lux-le-Haut, the chapel of Saint-Marcellin, the Ontaillez with its church dedicated to Saint Hippolytus, and the church of Chasueil," threatening with anathemas and eternal punishment any sacrilegious person who would dare to infringe upon these donations.

The trust of the faithful was magnificently rewarded. Paralytics, the blind, and the possessed from Bière, Bourberain, Blagny, Fleix, Manioche, Saint-Seine, Pouilly-sur-Vingeanne, Lux, Viévigne, Is-sur-Tille, Echirey, Lantenay, Fleurey, Courchamp, and other places were healed or delivered!

The abbey church, though vast and spacious, could not contain the pilgrims, so a monk, Grimerius, built a chapel on a nearby mound where Abbot Etienne deposited the bust of the holy martyr, so that everyone could satisfy their devotion at leisure, without disturbing the silence of the cloisters or interrupting the offices.

In 887, at the approach of the Normans, the monks of Bèze transported the body of Saint Prudent to Saint-Etienne of Dijon and placed it before the high altar. When the tide of the invasion had passed, those who had escaped death rebuilt the ruins of the abbey and came to ask for Saint Prudent back. The people of Dijon refused; but, compelled to obey the injunction of the diocesan bishop, Gauthier of Langres, they feigned submission, and, in reality, they gave the body of Saint Silvin.

Th e secret kep saint Silvin Saint whose body was fraudulently substituted for that of Prudent by the people of Dijon. t, the fraud seemed to succeed; but one day when the bishop was in Dijon, Saint Prudent appeared to him and said: "What! Pious pontiff, do you remain satisfied with such an exchange, and does it please you that another be honored under my name in the sanctuary that was built for me and on the seat that was raised for me?" The bishop, surprised, asked to understand, then immediately summoned the priests of Saint-Etienne, and after blaming their ruse, he declared them struck with anathema as long as they kept the relics.

The guilty, thus humiliated, set about to obey, and Saint Prudent was returned in great pomp from Dijon to Bèze (931). That day, a blind man from Viévigne, named Aldegandus, recovered his sight.

On June 8, 1116, the body of Saint Prudent was carried to the great pleas of God, held between Lux and Til-Châtel, by Jucerand, Bishop of Langres, under the presidency of Guy of Burgundy, Archbishop of Vienne, who became Pope under t he name of Calixte II Archbishop of Vienne who became pope, present at the Pleas of God in 1116. Callixtus II, to put an end to the quarrels, lawsuits, and other evils from which the province suffered. He was placed under a temple of greenery with other saints, and several great miracles took place there.

Parcels of the relics of Saint Prudent were granted, in 1675, to the church of Châtillon-sur-Seine, and, in 1686, to the city of Narbonne.

The relics of Saint Prudent, those of Saint Silvin and Saint Regisilde, having escaped all the disasters which, from century to century, have fallen upon the Abbey of Bèze, enrich the parish church.

Excerpt from the Life of the Saints of the Diocese of Dijon, by Abbé Replus.