Baring-Gould’s sources: Gallican and Roman Martyrologies, Ado, Usuardus, Hrabanus, &c. confound him with S. Apollinaris of Ravenna. Authorities: — Mention in the Chronicle of Ado of Vienne, and Agobard of Lyons in his book, “ De Judaicis Superstitionibus. ” Also a life of the saint by a deacon of S. Apollinaris, who died not many years later. His name was probably Eladius.] Apollinaris, Bishop of Valence, in Gaul, was bom of noble parents at Vienne. His brother was the more famous S. Avitus, Archbishop of Vienne after the death of S. Isichius, his father, who occupied the see till a.d. 494. The mother of S. Avitus and S. Apollinaris, and wife of S. Isichius, was named Audentia. A sister named Fuscina is praised for her virtues by S. Avitus, in one of his poems. The family was noble and splendid, and was apparently that of Avitus the emperor, and S. Sidonius Apollinaris. 1 Apollinaris was conS. Apollinaris of Valence.
…secrated Bishop of Valence in 499 by his brother Avitus, the Metropolitan. The two brothers had hard work in their Burgundian dioceses to contend against and root out the popular Arianism [followers of Arius, who taught that the Son is a created being, not fully God]. Sigismund, king of Burgundy, had renounced this heresy, but it prevailed amidst his subjects.
In 517 assembled the Council of Epaon, 1 convened by Sigismund to ameliorate the morals of the clergy in his realm, and to put in force the ancient disciplinary canons. In this council, which was attended by S. Avitus and S. Apollinaris, Stephen, fiscal prefect of Burgundy, was excommunicated for having married Palladia, his sister-in-law, on his wife’s death. This so exasperated Sigismund that he banished the bishops from his realm. Eleven of the exiled bishops thereupon assembled again in synod at Lyons, under the presidency of Virentiolus the archbishop, and renewed their sentence of excommunication. Apollinaris spent a year in exile, in the neighbourhood of Lyons, and was then recalled by the Burgundian king, who having been attacked by fever, thought it was sent him in punishment for his treatment of the bishops.
Not long after his return to Valence, S. Apollinaris started on a journey to Arles and Marseilles, to visit some of his relations. After his return to his see, he sickened and died. The relics [the bodily remains of a saint, or objects they used, kept with honor] of S. Apollinaris were thrown into the Rhone by the Huguenots, in the 16th century.
1 The position of Epaon is not known for certain, any more than our English Goveshoe; but Epaon is thought to be represented by the modern Yenne, at the mouth of the Flon.
