Porcarius II,A. C. Cooper-Marsdin, ''The History of the Islands of the Lerins: The Monastery, Saints and Theologians of S. Honorat'' (Cambridge University Press, 1913), p. 42. in French Porchaire II or Porcaire II (died c. 732), was a

Benedictine , image = Medalla San Benito.PNG , caption = Design on the obverse side of the Saint Benedict Medal , abbreviation = OSB , formation = , motto = (English: 'Pray and Work') , foun ...

abbot Abbot is an ecclesiastical title given to the male head of a monastery in various Western religious traditions, including Christianity. The office may also be given as an honorary title to a clergyman who is not the head of a monastery. The fem ...

who governed the

Abbey of Lérins An abbey is a type of monastery used by members of a religious order under the governance of an abbot or abbess. Abbeys provide a complex of buildings and land for religious activities, work, and housing of Christian monks and nuns. The conc ...

at a time when the monastery included over 500 monks. According to tradition, around the year 732, Porcarius was warned by an

angel In various theistic religious traditions an angel is a supernatural spiritual being who serves God. Abrahamic religions often depict angels as benevolent celestial intermediaries between God (or Heaven) and humanity. Other roles include ...

in a vision that the abbey was about to be attacked by barbarians. Immediately, the abbot heeded the warning and sent off to safety by ship all the young students at the abbey and 36 of the younger monks. When the ship left fully loaded, he set about preparing the rest of the community for death and prayed with them for courage. The community was attacked by the

Saracen upright 1.5, Late 15th-century German woodcut depicting Saracens Saracen ( ) was a term used in the early centuries, both in Greek and Latin writings, to refer to the people who lived in and near what was designated by the Romans as Arabia Pe ...

s, probably

Moors The term Moor, derived from the ancient Mauri, is an exonym first used by Christian Europeans to designate the Muslim inhabitants of the Maghreb, the Iberian Peninsula, Sicily and Malta during the Middle Ages. Moors are not a distinct or ...

from Spain or

North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...

, and were massacred, except four who were taken into slavery. Their

feast day The calendar of saints is the traditional Christian method of organizing a liturgical year by associating each day with one or more saints and referring to the day as the feast day or feast of said saint. The word "feast" in this context d ...

is celebrated in the

Diocese of Fréjus In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associat ...

on 12 August.

References

External links

Saint Porcarius and Companions
730s deaths 8th-century Frankish saints Angelic visionaries Benedictine abbots Benedictine martyrs Benedictine saints Christian saints killed by Muslims Frankish Benedictines Year of birth unknown {{France-saint-stub