Saint of the Day – 2 September – Saint Elpidius (4th Century) Abbot in Alcona, Italy, Monk, Hermit, Missionary to Italy, Born in Cappadocia in Asia Minor and died in Piceno, Ancona, Italy. Patronages – Sant’Elpdio a Mare, Sant’Elpidio Morico and Porto Sant’Elpidio, Italy. Also known as – Elpidius of Cappadocia, Elpidius the Abbot, Elpidius the Hermit, Elpidio…
The Roman Martyrology reads today: “In the Marche of Ancona, another St Elpidius, an Abbot. A Town hearing his name glories in the posseson of his sacred body.”
South of Ancona, several Towns bear the name of today’s Saint – Sant’Elpidio a Mare, Sant’Elpidio Morico and Porto Sant’Elpidio. In the Piceno area, this name is also frequently used by parents for their male children, yet, little is known about this Saint, so distant in time and memory that he has been confused with various other figures.
Some believe St Elpidius originated in Cappadocia. The writer Palladius recalls him in his Lausiac History as a Hermit who lived for many years in a cave near Jericho and sings the praises of an ascetic who, estranged from the company of men, chose the solitary ascent to the heights of Christian perfection.
At the time of Sant’Elpidius’ life, in the 4th Century, a new form of monasticism was gaining ground, with St Pachomius, the Founder of community life. In the Thebaid, near the Nile, he founded the first Convents of men and women, divided into individual cells, with a communal Church and refectory. At the head of each nucleus (the future Convent) was the Abbot, whose task was to ensure observance of the common Rule, enforcing chastity, work, fasting and the recitation of the Office.
A few years after St Pachomius, the great Church Fater, theologian and mystic, St Basil the Great, also of Cappadocia, issued a more moderate but wiser Rule, destined to become the constitutions, of all Christian monasticism, through the Benedictine Rule.
Elpidius had likely left the Monastery for a period of austere and solitude near Jericho, if we accept this version of the Saint’s life. He later moved to Piceno in Ancona, Italy, by the visitation and instruction of an Angel (see image below) to establish a Monastic community or at least to carry out some form of apostolate among the people. Some scholars, however, believe Elpidius was originally from Piceno and spent his entire life there, adhering to a highly personal ascetic rule, one which earned him the esteem and devotion, of the entire region. This great veneration has not yet diminished for the beloved St Elpidius who has interceded on many occasions for the welfar of the people and Towns under his patronage.
St Elpidius Relics eare nshrined in the Town of Cluana (modern Sant’Elpidio a Mare), Ancona, Italy. The miracles wrought through the veneration of these Relics saved the Town from a Lombarsiege when Elpidius appeared in the sky.
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