Portal:Catholicism/Patron Archive/February 20

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Saint Eucherius (french: Saint Eucher)(Orléans, 687?–20 February 743), nephew of Savaric, bishop of Auxerre, was bishop of Orléans.

Eucherius was born in Orleans, Gaul, as the son of a rich family. His uncle Suaviac was the bishop of Orleans.

After having completed his education, impressed by a sentence of Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, "This world as we see it is passing away" (1 Corinthians 7:31), he decided to live in the Benedictine monastery of Jumièges in the north of Gaul for some time. He soon gained a reputation as a well educated and devoted monk.

After seven years, in 721 his uncle died and Eucherius was chosen to be his successor. Eucherius was 25 years old. Asked by the people, and clergy of Orléans to be the new bishop, he said: "How easy could I, beguiled by the glamour and delight of the world, lose the crown of salvation, I wanted to gain here." Eucherius was horrified at the notion of being bishop and sought the protection of his brother monks, but they preferred the public good and resigned him up for that important charge.

Although he was unwilling to take the office, he proved to be an excellent bishop, loved and venerated by the people of his diocese.

He opposed Charles Martel when the latter confiscated church property to fund his war efforts against the Moorish invasions from Al-Andalus and to reward his loyal vassals. When Charles returned from his victory in Tours, he ordered Eucherius to come to Verneuil upon the Oise, in the diocese of Beauvais, where Charles then kept his court. There he exiled Eucherius and all his relatives to Cologne.

The extraordinary esteem which his virtue procured him caused Charles to send Eucherius to a fortress in the territory of Liege, but the governor of Liege gave him permission to live in the abbey of Sarchinium, of St Trond's, near Bruxelles.

There he died on February 20, 738.

In the ninth century Hincmar of Reims related the story of the vision with which St. Eucher was said to have been favoured and which showed Charles in hell, to which he had been condemned for robbing the Church of its property.
Attributes: as a bishop
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