Saint Leopardin

The pious Ardeus acceded to his request, and Leopardin, setting to work immediately, managed, with the help of a few companions, to build the monastery, the object of his vows. The new establishment prospered in an admirable manner under the direction of the man of God and the patronage o saint Symphorien Martyr of Autun under whose patronage the monastery is placed. f Saint Symphorian, for the chapel was dedicated under the invocation of this illustrious martyr of Autun.

However, B lichilde, Blichilde Wife of Ardeus and instigator of the murder of Leopardinus. the unworthy wife of Ardeus, the wickedest of women, was envious of the prosperity of the good religious. Having won over to her cause a certa in Plac Placide Unworthy disciple who betrayed Leopardinus. idus, an unworthy disciple of Leopardin, she managed to station four assassins on the road that the holy abbot had to cross to visit his brothers in Colombier. The executioners, having rushed upon the servant of God, dealt him a vigorous blow of an axe to the head and left him for dead. But the Saint, miraculously healed, soon rose from the blood-stained ground where he lay and continued on his way.

Disappointed in her hope, the infamous Blichilde nourished from then on a new plan of homicide, and, some time later, as our Saint was going to the Nivernais where he h ad been s Nivernais Region where the saint was martyred. ummoned to heal a sick person, he was assaulted by a troop of furious men who, having dragged him into a large wood, tortured him at their pleasure and finally cut off his head. Then, having dug a deep pit, they threw the holy body into it. For fear that it might be discovered, Blichilde soon had it exhumed and thrown into the pond of Hiaure, near the Allier; later, she had it removed from there again and cast into the deepest part of the river.

However, a religious of Saint-Symphorien knew by revelation the precise place where the holy remains lay. The body was removed from the river and deposited in the abbey church. In the 11th centur y, Ay Aymon Archbishop of Bourges in the 11th century. mon, Archbishop of Bourges, raised it from the earth, and the monastery of Saint-Symphorien de Vivaris, a priory dependent on the abbey of Saint-Sulpice de Bourges, took the name of Saint-Léopardin.

The cult of our holy abbot dates back to the most remote centuries; from the first years of the 7th century, it was already widespread in a large number of places in the Church of the Gauls, from the banks of the Rhône, the Allier, the Cher, and the Loire, to the banks of the Seine and beyond; from the mountains of Auvergne, to the banks of the Moselle and as far as Germania.

The life of Saint Léopardin is found t hroughout the work of Abbé Di Saint Symphorien et son culte Work by Abbé Dinet serving as a source for the biography. net: *Saint Symphorien et son culte*; we have only analyzed it.