Auratianus

Saint Auratian (Auratianus) is venerated at České Budějovice in the Czech Republic as patron of the city and of the local diocese. Nothing is known of his life; the only basis of the veneration is a Roman authentic identifying his remains as those of a holy martyr. He is presumed to have lived in the second or third century. He was buried at Rome, in the so-⁠called catacombs of Callixtus (in the seventeenth century that name covered the whole complex of catacombs).

In 1643 Pope Urban VIII gave his relics to the Capuchin provincial of Bohemia and Moravia, Ludwig of Rosenheim, with the order that they not be divided. The next year they were brought from Rome to Bohemia and placed in the Capuchin monastery of Saint Anne. On 4 August 1670 they were solemnly moved to the parish church (a cathedral since 1785) of Saint Nicholas and given to the city; the saint has a chapel there at the end of the north aisle. Each year his feast is kept at České Budějovice on 3 August, and since 2016 a medal bearing his name is awarded on that occasion for merit to the diocese. He is usually depicted in military dress, bareheaded, with the martyr's palm branch and a sword.