ON BLESSED VALERIUS, ARCHBISHOP OF RAVENNA IN ITALY.
From the Antiquities of Ravenna by Girolamo de Fabris, published in Italian.
YEAR 812.
CommentaryBlessed Valerius, Archbishop of Ravenna in Italy.
St. Valerius, whom others call Valerian, in the year 807 succeeded John, the seventh Archbishop of Ravenna of that name, in the pastoral care: Created Archbishop in 807 whose fame is celebrated in our histories and praised for his distinguished zeal in promoting divine worship by adorning sacred churches, and especially that which is consecrated to St. Apollinaris in Classe — where among other things he consecrated an altar to St. Eleuchadius, inscribed in the calendar of Saints on February 14, which is to the left of those entering the church, beside the bell tower. He adorns churches The Ursiana basilica was also enriched by him with many silver vessels, to which he also donated a silver table, so wrought by the hand of a most ingenious craftsman that the engraving represents a shady plane tree. It is moreover reported that from the ruins of two ancient churches (one of which had been dedicated to St. George, the other to St. Eusebius, by the Arians, he founds the Valeriana outside the gate of St. Victor — which he, abominating the memory of the heretics, had ordered to be razed to the ground), he built a most beautiful church, which kept from its founder the name of the Valeriana. After these and other things gloriously and magnificently accomplished, and virtues no less eminently cultivated, he departed this life in the year of our redemption 812, on March 15, while Leo III still held the Roman Chair, and Charles the Great indeed held the Western Empire, his body solemnly translated from Classe but Michael, successor of Nicephorus, the Eastern. His body was buried in the Classensian basilica, and from there in the year 1222, on May 9, it was solemnly translated by Archbishop Simeon; with Ubertello, Bishop of Forlimpopoli, Odo, Bishop of Cesena, and Rustico, Bishop of Cervia, honoring the ceremony by their presence. Our historian Girolamo Rossi thus recalls this translation in Book 6: "On the same day, the bones of the Lord Archbishop Valerius in the Classensian church were translated by the same Simeon, with a solemn procession of Bishops formally declared, to the Ursiana church." In the histories of the Camaldolese, published by Augustino Fortunio, Part 2, Book 1, Chapter 4, it is also read that the aforesaid Archbishop Simeon adorned the same Classensian basilica with one year of Indulgences the memory obscured among posterity out of reverence for Blessed Valerius. From these testimonies we know how undoubted in those times was the sanctity of Blessed Valerius, and what truly religious and public veneration was also paid to his relics — even though the carelessness of a forgetful age has now almost lost his memory, and it remains uncertain in what part of our Metropolitan church his sacred bones rest; just as his virtues too are obscure, on account of which he so merited to be honored. So that about him too it may be said what Thomas Herrera said in the Alphabetum Augustinianum on the occasion of Blessed Franceschinus of Ravenna: "Sometimes the Saints too, by a hidden dispensation of God, have a certain, I know not what, unhappiness about them: since, though they are in the supreme felicity of enjoying the clear vision of God and cannot be unhappy, nevertheless through the yawning or negligence of their companions, they lack, without unhappiness, the felicity of human veneration."