St. Claude, Archbishop of Besançon, Confessor


[Patron of the Diocess of St. Claude.] THE PROVINCE of eastern Burgundy, now called Franche Compté, received great lustre from this glorious saint. He was born at Salins about the year 603, and was both the model and the oracle of the clergy of Besançon, when, upon the death of Archbishop Gervaise, about the year 683, he was chosen to be his successor. Fearing the obligations of that charge, he fled and hid himself, but was discovered and compelled to take it upon him. During seven years he acquitted himself of the pastoral functions with the zeal and vigilance of an apostle; but finding then an opportunity of resigning his see, which out of humility and love of solitude he had always sought, he retired to the great monastery of St. Oyend or Ouyan on Mount Jura, and there took the monastic habit in 690. Violence was used to oblige him soon after to accept the abbatial dignity. Such was the sanctity of his life, and his zeal in conducting his monks in the paths of evangelical perfection, that he deserved to be compared to the Antonies and Pacomiuses, and his monastery to those of ancient Egypt. Manual labour, silence, prayer, reading of pious books, especially the Holy Bible, fasting, watching, humility, obedience, poverty, mortification, and the close union of their hearts with God, made up the whole occupation of these fervent servants of God, and were the rich patrimony which St. Claude left to his disciples. He died in 703, according to F. Chifflet; but, according to Mabillon and the authors of the new Gallia Christiana, in 696. His body was buried in the abbatial church of St. Oyend or Condate, and discovered there in 1243, and put into a silver shrine. It was found and is still preserved without the least blemish of corruption. The bowels are entire in the body, and the joints flexible. The feet are exposed bare three times every day to be kissed by pilgrims, for his shrine has been for many ages one of the most famous pilgrimages in France. The monastery and town changed their former names of Condate and St. Oyend for that of St. Claude. This great abbey of Benedictins not reformed, was secularized and converted into a collegiate of canons, in 1723, and into a cathedral in 1743, a rich bishopric being erected in it. The town of St. Claude is seven leagues from Geneva. The festival of this saint is kept on the 6th of June. His life, written only in the twelfth century, is given by Henschenius with notes. See F. Chifflet, in his Illustrationes Claudianæ. Mabillon, Act. Ben. Dunod, Hist. de l’Eglise de Besançon, p. 65, &c.	1

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