Aquilinus of Milan

Saint Aquilinus of Milan, Martyr, also called Aquilinus of Cologne, was a missionary priest and preacher in Germany and other European countries, venerated as a martyr by the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church. He is remembered on 29 January. The year of his death is uncertain; modern sources give 1015.

He was born at Würzburg, into a noble family (according to the Greek source, a family of heretics), and studied theology at Cologne, where he was ordained priest. The bishopric of Cologne was offered to him, but he refused it, wishing to remain a missionary priest and preacher. He went to Paris, where, according to tradition, he miraculously cured some people of cholera. Because of this the bishopric of Paris was offered to him, but he refused that too. He went to Pavia, where he preached against the Cathars, the Manichaeans and the Arians, then to Milan, to the church of San Lorenzo. According to local tradition he was stabbed by a member of one of these sects, together with his companion Constantius (Costanzo), near Porta Ticinese, on Via della Palla. His body was thrown into a drain, then found and buried in the basilica of San Lorenzo in Milan. The Cappella di Sant'Aquilino is dedicated to him and he is often shown with hands joined in prayer and head raised to heaven; in other images, with a sword stuck in his neck.

The dates are uncertain. The Bollandists placed his arrival in Italy in 489, in the time of Theodoric, and his death in 526, a date that would fit with the Lombards' passing from Arianism to Catholicism, in the time of Theodelinda (about 627), but they may be different persons. In Milan he is the patron of the porters (facchini), because his body was found by porters, and on the day of his death he is honoured in the porters' procession “Balla,” organized by the confraternity of that name. He should not be confused with another Aquilinus, killed in 484 under the Arian Vandal king Huneric, nor with an early bishop of Cologne of the same name.