Day: August 9, 2023

Saint of the Day – 9 August – Saint Autor of Metz (5th Century) the 13th Bishop of Metz in France, for 29 years, Miracle-worker. Patronage – of Braunschweig, Germany. Also known as – Adinctor, Auctor, Auteur, Autore, Author. Additional Memorials – 11 August (Diocese of Metz, France), 10 August – the presumed date of his death (Martyrology of St Jerome), 20 August (Braunschweig, Germany), 13 March (translation of relics).

Tradition says that Autor was a cobbler, known in the City of Metz, France for his holiness. When Bishop Valerius was murdered, local people approached Autor to take the office. He initially refused but while he was arguing with the faithful, he dropped his leather awl – it landed point down, punched a small hole in the dirt and a spring of fresh water erupted from it. Both he and the townspeople knew a sign when they saw it and he became the 13th bishop of Metz

His position was assigned by the most ancient catalogue of the City’s Bishops, compiled around 776 and which has survived to this day. Saint Autor is mentioned in 451.

It is believed from these records that our Saint governed the Diocese for twenty-nine years. According to Paul the Deacon in his text ‘Gesta Episcoporum Metensium – Acts of the Bishops of Metz,’ Saint Autor lived at the time of Attila and, with many others, was deported by the Huns. But a miracle by Autor’s prayers, saved him from deportation. It is said, in fact, that he miraculously restored the sight of some barbarians who had been struck blind as they had come to send him out of Metz. Their vision returned when they freed Autor and he prayed for them.

Some historians inform us that Autor ruled the fate of the Diocese of Trier, as well as Metz, in a period in which it remained vacant but this statement has no historical basis.

There is a legend about the translation of his Relics. In the year 852, Bishop Drogone brought back his remains together with those of St Celeste, his predecessor, to the Monastery of Marmoutier. A procession had been organized to display the cloth Relics to the faithful but a strange thing happened. The remains of Saint Autor which were placed in front of those of St Celeste, would not move, until those of St Celeste were placed first in the procession.

St Autor’s Relics remained in the Alsatian Monastery of Marmoutier in Strasbourg, until the Saint is said to have appeared in a dream to the Margravine of Braunschweig, Gertrude the Younger, asking her to transport his remains to Braunschweig, to the newly founded Aegidien Monastery. This iis mentioned in an historical record, completed around 1210. According to another source, St Autor’s Relics were transferred from St. Maximin to the Helmarshausen Monastery as early as 1105 from where they were finally taken to Braunschweig.

In 1200 , during a throne dispute, the troops of the King Philip of Swabia besieged the City of Braunschweig. On 20 August of that year, Saint Autor saved the City from being taken, by appearing, sword in hand to the enemy troops, who then retreated in fear. Since then he has been the Patron Saint of Braunschweig and 20 August is the “Autor’s Day.”

The relatively peaceful ending of inner-city revolts during the 14th and 15th Centuries were also attributed to the intercession of the City Saint.