Saint Heliodorus of Altino

Saint Jerome having left A quileia Aquilée Place where Diocletian began the mentioned persecutions. , a city in the kingdom of Illyria, where he had spent a few years with Heliodorus, the latter accompanied him on the journey he made to the East around the year 371 and followed him through Thrace, Pontus, Bithynia, Galatia, Cappadocia, and Cilicia, visiting the servants of God with whom these lands were populate d. Upon Antioche Ancient city where Saint Publia and her community resided. arriving in Antioch, they stopped there for some time to att end the les Apollinaire Exegete whose lectures were attended in Antioch. sons of Apollinaris, who explained the Holy Scripture with great reputation; and although his errors had not yet become public, it did not take long for Heliodorus to perceive the venom contained in his lessons. From Antioch, the pious travelers withdrew to a desert in the province of Chalcis, between Syria and Arabia. After spending some time there, Heliodorus, tormented by the desire to see his parents and his homeland again, wished to return to Europe, despite all that Saint Jerome could do to keep him by his side. He did, however, obtain a promise that his disciple would come to join him after having fulfilled what he regarded as a duty of filial piety.

After waiting a long time, Saint Jerome, not seeing him return, wrote him a pressing letter to urge him to break entirely with the world; but God had other designs for Heliodorus. After leaving his country and his relatives, he returned to Italy and was admitted into the clergy of the Church of Aquileia, which was then Église d'Aquilée Place where Diocletian began the mentioned persecutions. very flourishing due to the great number of learned and virtuous ecclesiastics who served it. A few years later, he was raised to the priesthood and subsequently chosen to be Bishop of Alt ino, a Altino Episcopal see of Heliodorus. suffragan city of the metropolis of Aquileia, not far from Treviso, but since ruined by the Huns, and whose see was transferred to Torcello. He was among the number of Catholic prelates who upheld the orthodox faith against the Arians. He attended, for this purpose, the C ouncil of Aquileia (381 concile d'Aquilée (381) Council held in 381 that condemned several Arian bishops. ), assembled by the order of Emperor Gratian l'empereur Gratien Roman Emperor of the West, protector of Ambrose. . Since this council, Saint Heliodorus, retired to his church, applied himself entirely to leading his people in the sure paths of the Gospel, to nourishing them with the word of God, and to supporting them by the example he gave them of all kinds of virtues.

He died around the year 390. Saint Jerome never forgot his former pupil, and, in one of his letters, he bears witness to him having lived in the episcopate with as much fervor and regularity as in a monastery.

Baillet: V ies des Baillet French hagiographer, author of the Vies des Saints. Saints.