St. Magnus, Bishop of Oderzo and Eraclea
October 6
Roman Martyrology: In Veneto, the commemoration of St. Magnus, bishop, said to have gone away from the city of Oderzo with much of his flock because the Lombard invasion, founding the new city of Heraclea, and has built eight churches in Venice.
Even if his legend was, as the Martyr Comm. Roma, “a tissue of clichés” and though the earliest evidence of him are of later centuries, but it would be unwise to abandon the position of discrete acceptance of the Venetian tradition, which was already the Bollandist J. Guese quiere. According to this tradition was born in Great Altino noble family, probably in ‘the last quarter century. VI. Experience at home the humanistic education, he retired to life as a hermit on an island in the nearby lagoon, where he prepared for the priesthood, who received and exercised in the city of Oderzo, fighting the last layers of paganism and the Aryan infiltration coming from the part of diocese (Ceneda), occupied by the Lombards.
In 630 approx. succeeded s. Titian in the episcopal see of Oderzo. The city and the diocese were still subject to the Byzantines, which provide the final spur on the mainland, a wedge driven into the Lombard kingdom of resistance. It is no wonder that Rotari, taking advantage of the fact that the Byzantine forces were engaged in the East, the 638-39 has attacked and occupied the town. Most of the inhabitants, under the guidance of its political leaders and especially the bishop, took refuge in the neighboring islands of the Venetian lagoon, which were part of the Diocese of Oderzo, the most in that arose when “Civitas Nova Heraclian que dicitur.” Magno obtained from the Pope Severinus (May 28 to August 2 640) and primitive, patriarch of Grado, to move the bishop’s seat, while retaining the name of Oderzo. Built the cathedral dedicated to the apostle St. Peter, indeed, the tradition makes the founder, by divine inspiration, eight other churches in the area where it will rise Rialto Venice. A new influx of Opitergino at Heraclea and nearby islands took place when, in 665-667, Oderzo was reoccupied by the Lombards and destroyed the foundations. The holy survived a few years to the sad event: ninety died around 670 and was buried in his cathedral.
When for the burial of the surrounding lagoon, Eraclea was abandoned by its inhabitants, the Doge Pietro Ziani (1205-29), 6 October 1206, he carried the remains of the Great in Venice, in S. Jeremiah. On December 21, 1459, the Venetian Senate decreed that the day was a holiday for the whole city at that festival, the Doges were pilgrims with their court in S. Jeremiah, until, on 28 September 1563, a new decree of the senate that allowed an arm of the saint was brought to the basilica of S. Marco and there every year, October 6, exposed to the veneration of the doge and the faithful within a rich silver reliquary.
Magnus continues to be venerated in the Diocese of Venice as a secondary patron, even after April 22, 1956 his remains returned to Heraclea be retained in the new parish church of St. Mary Immaculate. The most beautiful depiction of the saint is unbelief S. Thomas, Academy of Fine Arts in Venice: Cima da Conegliano shows him standing with bushy white beard, wrapped in rich cope, the pastoral staff in his left, along with s. Thomas, because as he was the protector of the art of the builders.
Author: Daniel Irenaeus
Source: Santi e Beati
Posted by naniam 
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