ON ST. EUCHARIUS, BISHOP OF MAASTRICHT IN BELGIUM.
6TH CENTURY.
Commentary.
Eucharius, Bishop of Maastricht in Belgium (St.)
Author I. B.
[1] At Maastricht on the Meuse, an ancient and noble city of Belgium, St. Eucharius was the tenth Bishop after St. Servatius, who transferred the See there from Atuatuca Tungrorum; and the nineteenth after St. Maternus, disciple of the Apostle Peter, who is counted as third among the Bishops of Trier and first of Tongeren. The collective memorial of all who presided over the Church of Maastricht, and those who before that presided over the Church of Tongeren, is celebrated at Maastricht with a double office on the 6th of February, as we have noted on that day: for all have been enrolled in the registers of the Saints. But separately, on various days, the solemnity of each individual is observed in the same Church or in others, or at least their names are read in Martyrologies and Calendars. St. Eucharius is assigned to the 27th of February. Thus the Calendar of Saints of the diocese of Liege, printed at Liege some years ago: St. Eucharius, Bishop of Maastricht. Ferrarius in the General Catalogue of Saints: At Maastricht on the Meuse, of St. Eucharius, Bishop of Tongeren and Maastricht. The same Ferrarius, however, had written the preceding day thus: On the same day, the memory of Blessed Eucharius, 19th Bishop of Tongeren.
[2] In assigning the time when he held the See of Maastricht, Johannes Placentius blunders badly, as is his wont: He was created Bishop, he says, in the year 549. Our Aegidius Bucherius, in the Chronology of the Bishops of Maastricht appended to volume 1 of Jean Chapeaville, establishes that Eucharius succeeded St. Falco in the year 532, and died in 538. Him Autbert Miraeus follows in the Belgian Calendar, and Claude Robert in the Gallia Christiana. We have shown on the 20th of February that St. Falco died around the year 512. How long St. Eucharius, who was appointed in his place, held office is not clear. His successor St. Domitianus attended the Council of Clermont in the year 535: therefore St. Eucharius had died before that time, but how long before, we cannot divine.
[3] Even more than the time of his See, the deeds he accomplished remain unknown. Placentius says he was a man of hereditary nobility and solid perfection: a probable conjecture. Aegidius of Liege, a monk of Val d'Or, takes from the meaning of his name -- which signifies "good grace" -- the starting point for commending his virtue, writing thus on chapter 31 of Abbot Hariger's work on the Bishops of Tongeren, Maastricht, and Liege: A bearer of good grace both in name and an emulator in deed, Blessed Eucharius was the nineteenth Bishop: and on the 3rd before the Kalends of March he is believed to have been crowned by the Angels among the choirs of his fellow priests and confessors, he who by living in holiness and justice strove every day to offer a holocaust to the Lord, not from another's flock, but from his own body.