Saint of the Day – 18 August – Saint Firminus of Metz (Died c496) Bishop and Conmfessor.
The Roman Martyrology reads: “At Metz, Firminus, Bishop and Confessor.”
Firminus was the 11th Bishop of Metz. In the official chronology of the Bishops of the Diocese, he succeeds Adelphus and precedes Leontius. His position was assigned by the oldest catalogue of the Bishops of the City, compiled around 776 and which has come down to us in the “Sacramentary” of Drogo,the Bishop of Metz between the years 823 and 855.
We know very little about our Saint today. Firminus is presumed to have been Greek in origin and that he governed the Diocese at the end of the 4th and the beginning of the 5th Centuries.
He seems to have been the Bishop for fifteen years and to have died on 18 August, in an unspecified year. but is was probably just before the assent of the new Bishop, Leontius, hence we place his death in c496.
His body was buried in the crypt of the Church of Saint Clement, the first Bishop of Metz. The stained glass window above resides in this Church too. His remains were transferred to the upper part of theChurch, where they were venerated until the end of the 18th Century. His Relics, after that time, as in many other cases, were destroyed by the satanic horrors and violent excesses of the French Revolutionaries.
The Feast of Saint Firminus, in the Proper of Metz is fixed on the 18 August.
AnaStpaul 