Saint Maurice
Saint Maurice was the leader of the legendary Roman Theban Legion in the 3rd century, and one of the favorite and most widely venerated saints of that group. He was the patron saint of several professions, locales, and kingdoms. He is also a highly revered saint in the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria and other churches of Oriental Orthodoxy.
Hagiography
Early life
According to the hagiographical material, Maurice was an Egyptian, born in AD 250 in Thebes, an ancient city in Upper Egypt that was the capital of the New Kingdom of Egypt. He was brought up in the region of Thebes.Career
Maurice became a soldier in the Roman army. He was gradually promoted until he became the commander of the Theban legion, thus leading approximately a thousand men. He was an acknowledged Christian at a time when early Christianity was considered to be a threat to the Roman Empire. Yet, he moved easily within the pagan society of his day.The legion, entirely composed of Christians, had been called from Thebes in Egypt to Gaul to assist Emperor Maximian in defeating a revolt by the bagaudae. The Theban Legion was dispatched with orders to clear the Great St Bernard Pass across the Alps. Before going into battle, they were instructed to offer sacrifices to the pagan gods and pay homage to the emperor. Maurice pledged his men’s military allegiance to Rome. He stated that service to God superseded all else. He said that to engage in wanton slaughter was inconceivable to Christian soldiers. He and his men refused to worship Roman deities.
Martyrdom
However, when Maximian ordered them to harass some local Christians, they refused. Ordering the unit to be punished, Maximian had every tenth soldier killed, a military punishment known as decimation. More orders followed, the men refused as encouraged by Maurice, and a second decimation was ordered. In response to the Theban Christians' refusal to attack fellow Christians, Maximian ordered all the remaining members of his legion to be executed. The place in Switzerland where this occurred, known as Agaunum, is now Saint-Maurice, Switzerland, site of the Abbey of St. Maurice.So reads the earliest account of their martyrdom, contained in the public letter which Bishop Eucherius of Lyon, addressed to his fellow bishop, Salvius. Alternative versions have the legion refusing Maximian's orders only after discovering innocent Christians had inhabited a town they had just destroyed, or that the emperor had them executed when they refused to sacrifice to the Roman gods.
Historicity
There is a difference of opinion among researchers as to whether or not the story of the Theban Legion is based on historical fact, and if so, to what extent. The legend, by Eucherius of Lyon, is classed by Bollandist Hippolyte Delehaye among the historical romances. Donald F. O'Reilly, in Lost Legion Rediscovered, argues that evidence from coins, papyrus, and Roman army lists support the story of the Theban Legion.Denis Van Berchem, of the University of Geneva, proposed that Eucherius' presentation of the legend of the Theban legion was a literary production, not based on a local tradition. The monastic accounts themselves do not specifically state that all the soldiers were collectively executed; an eleventh-century monk named Otto of Freising wrote that most of the legionaries escaped, and only some were executed.
Afterlife
Veneration
Saint Maurice became a patron saint of the German Holy Roman Emperors. In 926, Henry the Fowler, even ceded the present Swiss canton of Aargau to the abbey, in return for Maurice's lance, sword and spurs. The sword and spurs of Saint Maurice were part of the regalia used at coronations of the Austro-Hungarian emperors until 1916, and among the most important insignia of the imperial throne. In addition, some of the emperors were anointed before the Altar of Saint Maurice at St. Peter's Basilica. In 929, Henry the Fowler held a royal court gathering at Magdeburg. At the same time the Mauritius Kloster in honor of Maurice was founded. In 961, Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor, was building and enriching Magdeburg Cathedral, which he intended for his own tomb. To that end,Maurice is traditionally depicted in full armor, in Italy emblazoned with a red cross. In folk culture he has become connected with the legend of the Holy Lance, which he is supposed to have carried into battle; his name is engraved on the Holy Lance of Vienna, one of several relics claimed as the spear that pierced Jesus' side on the cross. Saint Maurice gives his name to the town St. Moritz as well as to numerous places called Saint-Maurice in French speaking countries. The Indian Ocean island state of Mauritius was named after Maurice, Prince of Orange, and not directly after Maurice himself.
Over 650 religious foundations dedicated to Saint Maurice can be found in France and other European countries. In Switzerland alone, seven churches or altars in Aargau, six in the Canton of Lucerne, four in the Canton of Solothurn, and one in Appenzell Innerrhoden can be found. Particularly notable among these are the Church and Abbey of Saint-Maurice-en-Valais, the Church of Saint Moritz in the Engadin, and the Monastery Chapel of Einsiedeln Abbey, where his name continues to be greatly revered. Several orders of chivalry were established in his honor as well, including the Order of the Golden Fleece, Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus, and the Order of Saint Maurice. Additionally, fifty-two towns and villages in France have been named in his honor.
Maurice is also the patron saint of a Catholic parish and church in the 9th Ward of New Orleans and including part of the town of Arabi in St. Bernard Parish. The church was constructed in 1856, but was devastated by the winds and flood waters of Hurricane Katrina on 29 August 2005; the copper-plated steeple was blown off the building. The church is currently closed, and the building is for sale.
On 19 July 1941, Pope Pius XII declared Saint Maurice to be patron Saint of the Italian Army's Alpini. The Alpini have celebrated Maurice's feast every year since then.
Apparition
The Our Lady of Laus apparitions included an apparition of Saint Maurice. He appeared in an antique episcopal vestment and told Benoîte Rencurel that he was the one to whom the nearby chapel was dedicated, that he would fetch her some water, that she should go down to a certain valley to escape the local guard and see Mary, mother of Jesus, and that Mary was both in Heaven and could appear on Earth.Patronage
Maurice is the patron saint of the Duchy of Savoy and of the Valais as well as of soldiers, swordsmiths, armies, and infantrymen. In 1591 Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy arranged the triumphant return of part of the relics of Saint Maurice from the monastery of Agaune in Valais.He is also the patron saint of weavers and dyers. Manresa, Piedmont, Montalbano Jonico, Schiavi di Abruzzo, Stadtsulza and Coburg have chosen St. Maurice as their patron saint as well. St Maurice is also the patron saint of the Brotherhood of Blackheads, a historical military order of unmarried merchants in present-day Estonia and Latvia. In September 2008, certain relics of Maurice were transferred to a new reliquary and rededicated in Schiavi di Abruzzo.
Portrayal
St. Maurice began being portrayed as sub-Saharan African in the 12th century. The oldest surviving image that depicts Saint Maurice as a black African in knight's armor was sculpted in mid-13th century for Magdeburg Cathedral; there it is displayed next to the grave of Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor. Jean Devisse, The Image of the Black in Western Art, laid out the documentary sources for the saint's popularity and documented it with illustrative examples.When the new cathedral was built under Archbishop Albert II of Käfernberg, a relic said to be the head of Maurice was procured from the Holy Land.
The image of Saint Maurice has been examined in detail by Gude Suckale-Redlefsen, who demonstrated that this image of Maurice has existed since Maurice's first depiction in Germany between the Weser and the Elbe, and spread to Bohemia, where it became associated with the imperial ambitions of the House of Luxembourg. According to Suckale-Redlefsen, the image of Maurice reached its apogee during the years 1490 to 1530.
Images of the saint died out in the mid-sixteenth century, undermined, Suckale-Redlefsen suggests, by the developing Atlantic slave trade. "Once again, as in the early Middle Ages, the color black had become associated with spiritual darkness and cultural 'otherness'".
There is an oil on wood painting of Maurice by Lucas Cranach the Elder in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art.