Ansery of Soissons

Saint Ansery of Soissons, hierarch (Anséric or Anscher), was born in the village of Épagny, near Vic-⁠sur-⁠Aisne, was raised in the Church of Soissons and elected bishop of that city in 623. He died in 652. He is venerated as a saint in the Western Church and remembered on 7 September in the diocese.

He first appears in history among the fathers of the council of Reims in 625. In 634 he founded and endowed, outside the city walls, a church dedicated to Saint Stephen, the first martyr. In 637 he gave Gerard, abbot of the monastery of Saint-⁠Médard, the village of Faucoucourt with its dependencies; Audebert, bishop of Paris, and Saint Achaire, bishop of Noyon, were present at the gift, and King Dagobert I approved it the same year. That year he also signed the privileges granted by the king to the abbeys of Rebais and Saint-⁠Faron, confirmed on 1 March 641 by Pope John IV.

He took care of the restoration of the church of Saints Crispin and Crispinian and wished to place there solemnly the bodies of the two martyrs. Saint Eligius, bishop of Noyon, made a magnificent shrine in which the bodies, taken from the crypt where they had until then remained, were placed; the translation took place on 10 June 649.

Ansery died on 16 May 652 or, according to other historians, on 7 September of the same year, and Saint Salaberga, abbess of the monastery of Saint-⁠Jean at Laon, received a revelation of the hour of his death. He was buried in the church of Saint Stephen, today Saint-⁠Paul. In 1567 the Calvinists burned most of his relics.