ON SAINT COLIANUS, BISHOP OF ADRIA IN EMILIA.
CommentaryColianus, Bishop of Adria in Emilia (Saint)
G. H.
[1] Adria, once a noble city of Italy in Transpadane Emilia, of Adria situated within the mouths of the Po River, not far from the sea, which was named the Adriatic after it. It is believed to have been immediately adorned with episcopal dignity, an ancient episcopal see and to have embraced the faith of Christ together with the neighboring cities. This See was later transferred by the authority of Pope John X to Rovigo, built in the tenth century of Christ by Paul, Bishop of Adria. Who the bishops of Adria were is not clear. Ughelli, in volume 2 of Italia Sacra, treating of the bishopric of Adria, confesses that before the said Paul he had been able to discover only two bishops: Gallionistus, whom Jerome Rossi mentions in his History of Ravenna, Book 4, and Leo from a privilege of Pope Nicholas I; assigning the year 649 to the former, and 860 to the latter.
[2] In an ancient manuscript Martyrology to which the name of Bede is prefixed, which is still read daily in the illustrious Church of Aachen, the following is found at February 7: "And of Colianus, Bishop of Adria in Emilia." The rest is unknown to us. Saint Colianus, Bishop. Only this doubt has arisen: whether this Colianus might perhaps be the same as the Colianistus, or Calionistus, or Gallionistus of Ughelli and Rossi. Whether he is Calionistus This man was present at the Lateran Council under Pope Saint Martin, and together with more than a hundred other bishops proscribed the Typos of the Emperor Constans, and condemned the Monothelite heresy and its champions -- under Pope Saint Martin? Cyrus of Alexandria, Sergius, Paul, and Pyrrhus, Patriarchs of Constantinople -- in the year 649. Among the names of those who subscribed to the Council, this name is variously expressed in the manuscripts: for he is called Gallionistus, Callionistus, and Calionistus, Bishop of Hadria and Adrianensis. On that Synod we have often treated, and recently on February 6 in the Life of Saint Amandus by Philip of Eleemosyna; we shall treat more fully in the Life of Pope Saint Martin on November 12.