Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Germanus of Auxerre, Saint jərmāˈnəs, ōsĕrˈ [key], d. 448, Gaulish churchman, bishop of Auxerre (after c.418). St. Patrick was under his tutelage for 12 years. Popes Celestine I and Leo I sent ...

(Encyclopedia) Gregory of Nyssa, Saint nĭsˈə [key], d. 394?, Cappadocian theologian; brother of St. Basil the Great and his successor as champion of orthodoxy. He became bishop of Nyssa in Cappadocia in 371, was ...

(Encyclopedia) Agnes, Saint, 4th cent., virgin martyr. A noble Roman girl martyred at the age of 13 after rejecting a well-born suitor. She was included in the Depositio Martyrum of 354. On her feast day lambs are b...

(Encyclopedia) Joseph, Saint, husband of the Virgin Mary, a carpenter, a descendant of the house of David. He was apparently dead at the time of the Passion, for his last appearance in the Gospels is at the finding ...

(Encyclopedia) Epiphany ĭpĭfˈənē [key] [Gr.,=showing], a prime Christian feast, celebrated Jan. 6, called also Twelfth Day or Little Christmas. Its eve is Twelfth Night. It commemorates three events—the bapti...

(Encyclopedia) Leopold III or Saint Leopold, c.1073–1136, margrave of Austria (1095–1136). By his marriage (1106) with Agnes, widow of Duke Frederick I of Swabia (see Hohenstaufen), he became the stepfather of G...

(Encyclopedia) Lawrence of Brindisi, Saint brēnˈdēzē [key], 1559–1619, Italian Capuchin priest, Doctor of the Church, b. Brindisi, kingdom of Naples, as Cesare De Rossi. He joined the Capuchin Friars at the ag...

(Encyclopedia) Theodore of Studium, Saint sto͞oˈdēəm [key], 759–826, Byzantine Greek monastic reformer, also called St. Theodore the Studite. As an abbot he was early exiled for opposing the marriage of Empero...

(Encyclopedia) Benedict of Aniane, Saint, c.750–821, French abbot who became a monastic adviser to Louis I. He first founded (c.780) an austere monastic community at Aniane in Languedoc, based on Eastern asceticis...

(Encyclopedia) Ladislaus I or Saint Ladislaus lädˈĭslousˌ [key], 1040–95, king of Hungary (1077–95). He supported Pope Gregory VII against Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV, but rejected Gregory's suggestion that ...