Aurelius of Carthage

Saint Aurelius was Bishop of Carthage from about 391 until his death around 430, and a friend of the blessed Augustine of Hippo. The Church remembers him as a shepherd who guided the councils of Christian Africa with wisdom.

Little is known of his life apart from his work in the Church. When Augustine returned to Africa in 388, Aurelius was a deacon. He supported Augustine during his service at Hippo. When Augustine wished to found a monastic community, for which Bishop Valerius gave the land, Aurelius funded it. He also sent new brothers there, trained for episcopal service, so that the monastery became a kind of seminary for bishops. Augustine admired him greatly, and several of Augustine's letters to Aurelius survive.

Chosen bishop of Carthage around 392, Aurelius presided over many councils on doctrine and clerical discipline. Among them was the Council of 419, which gathered the "Code of Canons of the African Church", and the one of 418, which condemned Pelagianism in eight canons. He was among the first bishops to denounce Pelagianism. In 411, during his episcopate, the conference with the Donatists took place at Carthage. He encouraged the veneration of the martyrs and introduced the feast of Saint Cyprian.

His relics are kept, according to the sources, in the abbey of Hirsau in Germany. The Church keeps his feast on 20 July.