ON ST. PHOTINUS, CONFESSOR, IN THE NAMUR DIOCESE OF BELGIUM.
From the tradition and usage of the place where he is venerated
CommentaryPhotinus, Confessor, in the Namur diocese of Belgium (S.)
D. P.
Between Namur and Bouvignes on the Meuse, near the Abbey of Moulins, there is a village commonly called Anhée, The cult on the 1st Sunday of June where in the year 1647, when our Bollandus had a passage through that diocese, besides the church and the house of the Pastor nothing was seen, the dwellings of the peasants being further removed from there; but with great festivity, also on the first Sunday of June, St. Photinus the Confessor was said to be venerated, commonly S. Stan or S. Stamp (truly a wonderful conversion of the name), who is invoked against the diseases of children. The Rector of our College of Namur, Pierre de Troyen, asked to seek more and more distinct things, replied by letters given in the year 1689 on the 20th day of September, in these words: Twice I was in the village of Anhée, where St. Photinus, commonly S. Stamp, is honored: but I could learn nothing about him there, the patronage for relieving the weakness of infants except that the elders of the place believe that the Relics were carried off from there by the French. But the Prior of the Abbey of Moulins told me that he had heard from one of the older Monks, that a woman, who had brought an infant, weak and destitute of the faculty of walking, to the chapel of the Saint, by invoking him, brought it back beginning to walk. But nothing of such benefits is authentically had in writing; only it can be said for certain that there is a great concourse of women to that chapel, bringing thither their children, weak in forming their step. Thus far he. But because mention was made of the French, I recall that among them on 6 August, against lameness and gout is venerated S. Stapinus, whom Théophile Raynaud, a similarity with S. Stapinus, Patron of the Gouty. in the Little Work on the Titles of the special cult of the Saints, no. 24, makes Bishop of Castres, although in that place no Bishopric is known to have existed before the year 1317, when the diocese of Albi in Gaul was first divided. But on account of the silence of all the ancients about him, and the similarity of the grace attributed to him with St. Photinus, I am led to suspect that he is the same; whose notice came from the confines of semi-Teutonic Belgium to the French, not so long ago, under a name of the same or similar signification, not proper, but drawn from the kind of grace wont to be hoped for and obtained from him. For to the Belgians Stan is "to stand on the feet"; Stampen, "to beat the earth with the feet," which notes firmness; Stappen, "to set a step, and form paces"; which all look to the same.