Saint of the Day – 5 October – St Attilanus (c939-c1009) Bishop of Zamora, in Spain, Monk, friend , fellow missionary to the rural areas in Spain and spiritual student of St Froilan with whom he founded Monasteries including the the Monastery of Moreruela, Spain and where he became the Prior. Patronage of the Diocese of Zamora, Spain. Also known as – Atilanus, Attilano. Additional Feasts – 6 Octoger by the Benedictines and on 28 August in Tarragona, Spain.
The Roman Martyrology reads today: “St Attilanus, the Bishop of Zamora, who was ranked among the Saints by Urban II.”
Later, with the support of King Alfonso III the Great (died 910), St Froilan and Attilanus, founded several Monasteries in the León region of Spain which attracted many men and women eager to live ‘under the rule of holy discipline.’ Tradition holds that these Monks and Nuns followed the Benedictine Rule.
The King then forced Froilan to accept the Episcopal See of León and Attilanus that of Zamora. Their Consecration took place in León on the day of Pentecost, perhaps in 900.
Attilans’ name appears in a Charter of Alfonso dated in Sahagún on 28 April 909, and in various documents, some of which are from the Archives of Compostela, dating to January 916.
In a Vita, written after 1132, we read that Attilanus, after ten years of Episcopate, made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in penance for the sins committed during his youth and, as he was leaving Zamora, threw his Pastoral Ring into the eddies of the Duero River. Two years later, on his return, he lodged in a hut outside the City without being recognised then, opening a fish which his host had placed before him, he found the Ring inside. Suddenly, at the spontaneous ringing of all the Church bells, his tattered pilgrim’s clothes miraculously transformed into splendid Vestments.
Attilanus body was found in 1260 in the Cathedral of Sant’Ildefonso in Zamora, where it still rests today under the High Altar, except for his head which was taken, perhaps stolen, to the Cathedral of Toledo. His Ring and pilgrim’s staff also remain. The Feast of Attilanus, whose cult dates to the 12th Century, is celebrated on 5 October (6th by the Benedictines) and the Diocese of Zamora is placed under his Patronage.
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