St.
Maurice and Companions
St. Maurice (Mauritius) was an officer in the Theban Legion, a unit in the army of the
Emperor Maximian Herculius. This Legion, from Upper Egypt, was entirely
Christian, and when Maximian ordered his soldiers at Octodurum (now called
Martigny, Switzerland) to sacrifice to the gods as a way of ensuring victory in
battle, Maurice and two other officers led the Theban Legion in refusing, and
the legion withdrew to Agaunum (now St.-Maurice, in the Swiss Canton of
Valais). With Maurice encouraging the legionnaires to remain constant, even
after the Emperor had the legion decimated (every tenth man killed), the
legionnaires answered, "We have arms in our hands, but we do not resist
because we would rather die innocent than live by any sin." Maximian
ordered the rest of his army to kill the Christian legionnaires. The Theban
legion numbered about 6,600 men, but the actual number killed remains unclear.
Others were martyred for refusing to share in the spoils of the legionnaires.
St. Eucherius, a fifth-century bishop of Lyons, noted that many miracles took
place at the shrine of these martyrs. They are buried under the Basilica of
St.-Maurice-en-Valais in Switzerland.
Excerpted
from 2020 Saints Calendar & Daily Planner, Tan Books
Patron: Against gout; against
cramping; against arthritis; Alpine troops; armies; Austria; clothmakers;
dyers; infantrymen; Piedmont, Italy; Sardinia; soldiers; swordsmiths; weavers.
Symbols: Armor; banner with
lion rampant; sword; seven stars; eagle on a shield; red cross; often
Portrayed As: soldier; soldier being executed with other soldiers; knight
(sometimes a Moor) in full armour, bearing a standard and a palm; knight in
armor with a red cross on his breast, which is the badge of the Sardinian
Order of Saint Maurice.
Things
to Do: Read
the Golden Legend story of St. Maurice.
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