Information AboutSaint-maurice, Valais |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT AGAUNUM | |
| roman towns and cities in switzerland | |
| valais | |
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Near Agaunum, in a place still identifiable as a former temple to Mercury , god of travellers, recently excavated behind the abbey's present sanctuary, a revelation led to the discovery of martyr's bones during the time of Theodore, Bishop of Octodurus (now Martigny ), who was in office 350 AD. It led to the Cult of an entire Roman legion, the legendary Theban Legion , martyred at the spot, when this entirely Christian legion refused to sacrifice to the Emperor Maximian and were put to death, by Decimation , one out of ten at a time, until all were martyred. Their leader according to the legend was Saint Maurice . The martyrology was written by Eucherius, Bishop of Lyon, who died in 494 AD. He wrote "We often hear, do we not, a particular locality or city is held in high honour because of one single martyr who died there, and quite rightly, because in each case the saint gave his precious soul to the most high God. How much more should this sacred place, Aguanum, be reverenced, where so many thousands of martyrs have been slain, with the sword, for the sake of Christ." Eucherius' telling of the legend reports that the shrine erected by Theodore was already in his time a Basilica that was the destination of pilgrims. It lay within the diocese of the Bishop Of Sion . The actual site of the martyrdom (or of the cache of bones) was pointed out to pilgrims as the "true place" the ''vrai lieu'', a name it still carries, as Verroliez, according to local Etymology . In '' "perpetual praise" of relays of choirs, was an innovation for Western Europe, imported from Constantinople ; it was distinctive to the Abbey of St. Maurice and the practice spread widely from there. The Abbey of St Maurice at Agaunum was the chief Abbey of the Burgundian kingdom. In 961 the relics of Maurice and the martyrs were conveyed to the new cathedral being erected at Magdeburg by Emperor Otto I but the Abbey has continued to flourish. EXTERNAL LINKS
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