Saint of the Day – 16 January – Saint Titian of Oderzo (Died 632) Bishop of Oderzo and Confessor, Defender of the True Faith against the heresy of the Arians, Miracle-worker. Born in Heraclea, Italy and died on 16 January 632 in Oderzo, Italy of natural causes. Patronages – the City and Diocese of Oderzo, Treviso, Italy and of the Diocese of Vittorio Veneto (which,until 1939, bore the ancient name of Ceneda) also in Italy. Also known as – Titian of Venice, Tiziano of Oderzo.

According to ancient tradition, Titian belonging to a wealthy and distinguished family, was born around the year 555: on the Island of Eraclea/Heraclea. In his adolescence, Titian was sent to Oderzo, for his education, where St Florian was Bishop and where the Cathedral school was highly regarded.

As he grew older, Titian felt his vocation to the Priesthood mature prompted by his inclination to put himself at the service of poor people but also by the examples of his teacher St Florian. The latter, in due course, was happy to Ordain him a Deacon and then a Priest. Having demonstrated an excellent pastoral preparation, Titian was entrusted with the task of Treasurer and was promoted to Archpriest of the Cathedral. In exercising these trusted duties, Titian found a new opportunity to exercise charity towards the poor, who were many.

St Florian, having renounced the Episcopate, desiring to become a missionary among the pagans, with the hope, moreover, of seizing the Palm of Martyrdom, the clergy and people found no person more worthy than Titian to succeed him as shepherd and guide. According to ancient tradition, he was the Bishop of Oderzo for about 25 years.

As the Bishop, Titian had to fight strenuously to protect his See from the Arians. As historians assure us, by the zealous protection of their Bishop Titian, the Diocese of Oderzo remained immune from yielding to the heresy.

The civil situation, in those days, was profoundly upset by the invasion of the Longobards, against whom, Bishop Titian protect his people. The Lombards did not occupy the City of Oderzo, which still remained, for more than a century, the stronghold of the Byzantine Empire of the Venices.

Titian, rich in virtues and merits, surrounded by fame as a miracle-worker, died on 16 January 632. His body was placed in a separate tomb in the Church of his City, where the people immediately flocked to venerate him as a Saint, recognising the great merits acquired during his lifetime and testifying to the many miracles obtained through his intercession.

The Heracleans for their part did not delay in claiming the relics but in vain, due to the strenuous opposition of the Opitergians. Fellow citizens and relatives of the Saintly Titian, who came one day to Oderzo from Eraclea, under the pretext of visiting his tomb, abducted his body when night fell and carried it off by boat. The locals, soon realising what had happened, gave chase to the robbers and caught up with them in the vicinity of the castle of Motta, where the Monticano flows into the Livenza.

At this point a beautiful miracle, so dear to the people devoted to St Titian occurred and is illustrated by the painter Pomponio Amalteo in five splendid panels (1530) is conserved in the Diocesan Museum of Sacred Art. At the gates of the City. St Titian performed a great miracle, suddenly curing a young woman who had been seriously ill for a long time.

To solve the problem, after a fierce battle between the inhabitants of Oderzo and Eraclea, it was decided that St Titian’s Relics should be placed in a wagon pulled by oxen. Wherever the oxen stopped would be where the Relics would be housed. The oxen stopped at Ceneda and this is where the relics have remained to this day.

His Relics are now in the crypt of the Cathedral of Ceneda, in a bronze urn fashioned in neo-Byzantine style, in the form of a sarcophagus. He is depicted in various paintings in the Cathedrals of Oderzo and Ceneda and there are ten Parishes dedicated in his name