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Faithfulness to Christ when it cost everything.

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May 23 · Bishop, Martyr

St. Desiderius of Langres

St. Desiderius of Langres

Faithfulness to Christ when it cost everything.

Traditional feast

May 23
1914 / pre-1969 calendar, per Baring-Gould (1897)

Current feast

Not verified yet

Represents

Bishop
Martyr

Their story

Adapted in modern English from Alban Butler's Lives of the Saints · little is known

When pagan barbarians ravaged his part of Gaul, Desiderius, bishop of Langres, went out with his clergy to meet them. He was killed with his followers, giving his life for his flock.

Butler gives 411, following Tillemont, while noting that Sigebert places it under Gallien; Baring-Gould, the text on this page, gives about 407. The sources differ.

Early life

The book says little or nothing about early life. This is how the account begins.

Thin entry · the 1897 book gives only 0 words. We have not filled the gap with invented detail.

What they represent

How they teach us to live

Drawn from themes in the original account

Learn from the kind of life it was. Faithfulness to Christ when it cost everything.

Keep their day. Remember them on May 23 with a short prayer, and ask for their help.

Read more

The full original · 0 words

Read Baring-Gould’s full account

Baring-Gould’s sources: Roman and Gallican Martyrologies. Usuardus and Ado. Authority; — An account by Warnaharius, priest of Langres in the 7th cent.] AINT DESIDERIUS, whose name is corrupted in French into Didier; in Champagne into Dizier; in Languedoc and Italy into Deseri and Drezeri, and in Flanders into Desir, was a native of Genoa. He is supposed to have assisted at the Council of Cologne in 346, as Bishop of Langres; but this must have been another Desiderius, or he must have been extremely aged when he died. The Vandal incursion into the Champagne in 406 filled him with distress, and he went to the Vandal king, Croco, to implore his clemency towards the poor people of his diocese. The king, instead of listening to him, gave him to some of his soldiers to despatch, and he was executed with the sword. The blood spirted over his book of the Gospels which he held before his eyes when he received the fatal stroke.

Feast days

Feast: May 23

Nine days · Free

Pray the novena
with us.

One short email a day for nine days. The day's prayer, a line from St. Desiderius of Langres's story, and a nudge to keep going.

Also on May 23
D

St. Desiderius of Vienne

May 24 · Bishop, Martyr
St. William of Rochester

St. William of Rochester

May 24 · Martyr
St. Vincent of Lerins

St. Vincent of Lerins

May 24 · Priest
← All 1726 saints in the library
Sources & notes

Feast-day sources

Story sources

Sources

Credits

From Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, new edition in 16 vols. (London: John C. Nimmo, 1897–98); text from the Internet Archive scan (OCR, lightly cleaned; errors possible). Public domain.

From Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, new edition in 16 vols. (London: John C. Nimmo, 1897–98); text from the Internet Archive scan (OCR, lightly cleaned; errors possible). Public domain in the United States. Reproduced unedited, except for short bracketed notes in grey that we added to explain names and terms (“S.” is the old abbreviation for Saint). Some history and judgments reflect 19th-century scholarship.