Saint Severinus of Noricum

Saint Severinus of Noricum was a monk who, in the fifth century, as Roman rule along the Danube was collapsing under the pressure of the Germanic peoples, became the protector and defender of the inhabitants of the province of Noricum, in the lands of present-day Austria and Bavaria. Tradition calls him the apostle of Noricum. The Church commemorates him on January 8.

Almost everything known about him comes from the Life written in 511 by his disciple Eugippius. The year and place of Severinus’s birth are unknown. He himself did not want to speak of them: to a priest who asked him he replied that one who longs for the heavenly homeland has no need to tell of his earthly one. Eugippius noted only that his speech revealed a thoroughly Latin man and that he had earlier sought a more perfect life in a desert in the East.

He came to the Danube after the death of Attila, king of the Huns, that is, after 453. He stayed first at Asturis and Comagenis and then at Favianis, identified with present-day Mautern in Austria, where he founded a monastery. He lived austerely: he fasted much and, according to the Life, went barefoot even in the depth of winter. He longed for solitude and prayer, yet he kept leaving his cell to be with people harried by raids and famine.

He organized relief for the whole province. He urged the inhabitants to give a tenth of their crops for the support of the poor, brought in food and clothing, and ransomed captives. He called people to penance, prayer, and almsgiving. He also founded small communities of monks at Batavis and Boiotro, that is, in present-day Passau. Germanic rulers reckoned with him: he persuaded the king of the Alamanni to spare Roman territory and free his captives, and before the king of the Rugii he stood, as he himself said, as an ambassador of Christ, begging mercy for the subjects. According to the Life he was also visited by the young Odoacer, to whom Severinus foretold future greatness.

The Roman Martyrology calls Severinus a priest and monk. The Life, however, says nothing of his ordination, only that he refused to become a bishop. John Paul II, in a letter for the fifteen hundredth anniversary of his death, wrote that he was a monk and, as it seems, did not receive holy orders.

He died at Favianis on January 8, 482, among his disciples, repeating the verse of the psalm: “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.” He had earlier foretold that the Roman population would leave those parts, and he ordered that his body be taken with them. This happened in 488. The monks carried it to Italy and laid it to rest at Castellum Lucullanum near Naples, where a monastery arose whose abbot was later Eugippius. Today the saint’s relics rest at Frattamaggiore near Naples.

Severinus has been venerated as a saint since antiquity, long before canonization processes existed. John Paul II presented him as a man who joined constant prayer with active help for those in need, and as a defender of human rights.