SAINT MELANIUS

St. Melanius

Feastday: January 6
535

Also called Mullion, bishop of Rennes, France, when the Franks were invading Gaul. He was a Breton by birth, much respected by the Frankish ruler Clovis. Born in Brittany, he was Bishop of Rennes and succeeded in overcoming idolatry in his diocese.
St. Melanius, Bishop and Confessor.

HE was a native of Placs or Plets, in the diocess of Vannes in Brittany, and had served God with great fervour in a monastery for some years, when, upon the death of St. Amandus, bishop of Rennes, he was compelled by the clergy and people to fill that see, though his humility made great opposition. His virtue was chiefly enhanced by a sincere humility, and a spirit of continual prayer. The author of his life tells us, that he raised one that was dead to life, and performed many other miracles. King Clovis, after his conversion, held him in great veneration. The almost entire extirpation of idolatry in the diocess of Rennes was the fruit of our saint’s zeal. He died in a monastery which he had built at Placs, the place of his nativity, according to Dom Morice, in 490. He was buried at Rennes, where his feast is kept on the 6th of November. In the Roman Martyrology he is commemorated on the 6th of January. St. Gregory, of Tours, mentions a stately church erected over his tomb. Solomon, sovereign prince of Brittany, in 840, founded a monastery under his invocation, which still subsists in the suburbs of Rennes, of the Benedictin order. See the anonymous ancient life of St. Melanius in Bollandus; also St. Greg. Tour l. de glor. Conf. c. 55. Argentre, Hist. de Bretagne. Lobineau, Vies des Saints de Bretagne, p. 32. Morice, Hist. de Bretagne, note 28, p. 932.