Saint Amand’s Fail Among the Danubian Slavs

Amandus (circa 575 – circa 676) aka Saint Amand of Maastricht was a bishop of Tongeren-Maastricht and one of the Christian missionaries in Flanders.  The primary source for the details of his life is the, appropriately named, Vita Sancti Amandi, an eighth-century Saint’s Lives text written by Beaudemond/Baudemundus and later expanded by Philippe of Aumône.

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During the course of his rather unusually long life, Saint Amand also tried his hand at converting the Slavs (probably the Carantanians) which, it turns out, did not go so well.  We present here chapter 16 of the Vita which deals with that episode (and is yet another very early mention of Slavs).  The events described below likely took place immediately prior to or during the reign of Samo.

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“When the holy man saw that his preaching had already converted some, he still burnt with a great desire to convert others and when he heard that the Slavs, horribly misled by the lies of the devil who’d bound and oppressed them, [and] especially convinced that he could win the prize of martyrdom, he crossed the Danube in the same places to free them by preaching the Gospel of Christ.   [Yet] only a few of those turned to Christ and seeing himself not increasing the fruit and not able to obtain martyrdom which he’d always sought, he returned again to his own sheep, to care for their needs and induce them, by preaching, to turn to the heavenly kingdom.”

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(Cum iam vir sanctus videret praedicatione sua nonnullos converti, et adhuc maiori aestuans desiderio, quatenus adhuc alii converterentur, audivit, quod Sclavi, nimio errore decepti, a diaboli laqueis tenerentur oppressi, maximeque martyrii palmam se adsequi posse confidens, transfraetato Danubio, eadem circumiens loca, libera voce euangelium Christi gentibus praedicabat.  Paucisque ex his in Christo regeneratis, videns etiam sibi minime adcrescere fructum et martyrium, quem semper quaerebat, minime adepturum, ad proprias iterm reversus est oves, curamque gerens earum, ad caelestia regna praedicando perduxit.)

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October 17, 2016

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