Veneration
A noted miracle worker, St Apollinaris is considered especially effective against gout and epilepsy. His relics are at the Basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo (which housed his relics from the 9th century until the 1748 reconsecration of Sant'Apollinare in Classe) and the 6th century Benedictine Basilica of Sant'Apollinare in Classe (on the traditional site of his martyrdom), both in Ravenna and in Saint Lambert's church, Düsseldorf, Germany. There are also churches dedicated to him in Aachen, Burtscheid and Remagen in Germany, where his veneration was probably spread by Benedictine monks. The Frankish king Clovis built a church dedicated to him in Dijon, and another dedicated to Saint Apollinaris also existed in Bologna, but was destroyed in 1250. Bořivoj II, Duke of Bohemia, founded a church with collegiate chapter dedicated to St Apollinaris in Sadská (then an important centre of the Czech state) in 1117/1118. On behalf of Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor, the chapter was later transferred from Sadská to recently founded New Town of Prague in 1362 and another church of St Apollinaris built there. Both of these churches in Bohemia stand to the present time.
In the Tridentine Calendar his feast day is July 23, his birthday into Heaven, i.e. the day of his martyrdom. The present General Roman Calendar devotes this day to Saint Bridget of Sweden, since it is also her birthday to Heaven and she is now better known in the West than Saint Apollinaris, being one of the patron saints of Europe. Owing to the limited importance of Saint Apollinaris's feast worldwide, his liturgical celebration was removed from the General Roman Calendar (with his name remaining in the Roman Martyrology, the official list of saints) in 1969, but it was restored in the 2002 edition of the Roman Missal. The date of celebration was changed to July 20, the nearest day not taken up with other celebrations. The Roman Martyrology mentions Saint Apollinaris both on July 20 (with the above-quoted text) and also more briefly on July 23.
Some continue to follow earlier calendars, which at first classified his July 23 feast as a "Semidouble", by 1862 as a "Double", and in 1960 as a "Third-Class Feast". It is now an optional "Memorial".
Read more about this topic: Apollinaris Of Ravenna
Famous quotes containing the word veneration:
“It is evident, from their method of propagation, that a couple of cats, in fifty years, would stock a whole kingdom; and if that religious veneration were still paid them, it would, in twenty more, not only be easier in Egypt to find a god than a man, which Petronius says was the case in some parts of Italy; but the gods must at last entirely starve the men, and leave themselves neither priests nor votaries remaining.”
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