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Aurea of Paris; (died 666; French: ''Sainte Aure''), venerated as Saint Aurea of Paris, was an abbess of
She died "with one hundred and sixty of her sisters" of the plague in 666. Aurea's relics are held at the church of St Eloi in Paris. In the same church, there is also a mural of her receiving the veil from St Eloi.
Aurea of Paris; (died 666; French: ''Sainte Aure''), venerated as Saint Aurea of Paris, was an abbess of Saint Martial
Saint Martial (3rd century), called "the Apostle of the Gauls" or "the Apostle of Aquitaine", was the first bishop of Limoges. His feast day is 30 June.
Life
There is no accurate information as to the origin, dates of birth and death, or the acts ...
in Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
in the seventh century. Dagoburt I and Clovis II
Clovis II (633 – 657) was King of Neustria and Burgundy, having succeeded his father Dagobert I in 639. His brother Sigebert III had been King of Austrasia since 634. He was initially under the regency of his mother Nanthild until her deat ...
ruled at the time. Her 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 ...
was originally the 4th October, however, this was transferred to the 5th October following the veneration of St Francis of Assisi
Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone, better known as Saint Francis of Assisi ( it, Francesco d'Assisi; – 3 October 1226), was a Mysticism, mystic Italian Catholic Church, Catholic friar, founder of the Franciscans, and one of the most vener ...
.
Narrative
She appears in works by two writers,St Ouen
Audoin (AD 609 – on 24 August 684; also spelled ''Audoen'', ''Ouen'', ''Owen''; la, Audoenus; known as Dado to contemporaries) was a Frankish bishop, courtier, hagiographer and saint.
Life
Audoin came from a wealthy aristocratic Frankish fami ...
and Jonas of Bobbio
Jonas of Bobbio (also known as Jonas of Susa) (Sigusia, now Susa, Italy, 600 – after 659 AD) was a Columbanian monk and a major Latin monastic author of hagiography. His ''Life of Saint Columbanus'' is "one of the most influential works o ...
, in their hagiography (saint's life stories) of St Eligius and St Eustace. Both writers state that she was an immigrant to Paris from Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
.
When around 632 Eligius, by the liberality of King Dagobert, settled at Paris a nunnery of three hundred virgins, he appointed Aurea abbess.Butler, Alban. "St. Aurea, Virgin and Abbess", ''The Lives of the Saints''. 1866She died "with one hundred and sixty of her sisters" of the plague in 666. Aurea's relics are held at the church of St Eloi in Paris. In the same church, there is also a mural of her receiving the veil from St Eloi.
Veneration
As her nunnery stood within the city she could not be buried at it, and she was therefore interred at St. Paul’s, and some time after, her bones were taken up, and kept in a rich shrine in that church, till they were translated to her monastery. Aurea was believed to have brought a woman back to life, so that she could release a key from her dead hands; to have swept red-hot ashes out of an empty oven, seemingly causing well-baked loaves to appear; and, long after death, to have cured a blind woman with the touch of her cut-off (and freshly bleeding) arm.References