Saint of the Day – 23 April – St Ives of Huntingdonshire (6th-7th Century) Bishop, Missionary. Born in the 6th Century in Persia and died in Huntingdonshire (now Cambridgeshire) England of natural causes. Also known as – Ivo of Ramsey, Ive… Ives… Ivia… Yves. Additional Memorial – 10 June in St Ives.
Ives was born in the 6th Century, in Persia, of a noble family and became a Missionary and then the Bishop of Huntingdon in England.
He dedicated himself to itinerant preaching, on the model of St Paul the Apostle, first in Asia Minor and in Illyria (historical region of the Balkan Peninsula which became a Roman Province in 228).
On his travels, he passed through Rome and from there he arrived in France where he had great success, honoured by the King, the nobles and the people; perhaps from him the name Ives (Yves) began to establish itself more in France.
But Ives, wanting to refuse all the honours paid to him for his evident sanctity, went with three companions to England, where he worked fruitfully for several years in Mercia (one of the seven Kingdoms, founded by the Anglo-Saxons in the second half of 5th Century) finally establishing his residence in the City of Sleve, now St Ives, three miles from Huntingdon. It seems he was appointed as the Bishop although it is uncertain when. After several years of his pastoral apostolate among those populations, he died at the beginning of the 7th Century.
His Relics were miraculously discovered in 1001 and transferred to the Benedictine Abbey of Ramsey, the new name of Huntingdon his ‘Life’ from which subsequent biographies arose, was written by the Monk Goscelin of Westminster in 1091 on behalf of Abbot Erebert.
His celebration is on 24 April and 10 June.