Aventinus of Larboust

Saint Aventinus of Larboust was born near Bagnères-⁠de-⁠Luchon in the Pyrenees, lived as a hermit in the valley of Larboust and was killed by the Saracens in the year 732. What is preserved about him is mostly tradition and legend, and his veneration is deeply rooted in the Larboust valley and as far as Aragon.

According to the legend, his mother was one of the pagans living in the valley and, in great pain at his birth, asked the help of some Christians and gave birth easily. The child grew up in the Christian faith and became a monk or a priest, as the sources differ. He withdrew to a place nearby, at the so-⁠called barns of Astau, at the foot of the valley of Oô. One story says that a bear came to him one day with a large thorn in its paw, and Aventinus drew it out, and the bear went away without harming him. He was preaching in the region when the Saracens came. They pursued him, caught him and led him to the tower of Castel-⁠Blancat. The Moors had scarcely shut him in when they saw him appear on top of the tower and leap into the void; he crossed the valley in this way and landed on a rock, which kept the print of his foot. He went on preaching, was seized again and this time was beheaded on the spot. The story says that he took up his head and walked to the place where he fell dead; his disciples buried him there.

Centuries later a cowherd dug at that spot and the voice of an angel was heard: "Here rests the blessed Aventinus." A swarm of bees rose from the ground and stopped the digging, until Bishop Bertrand of Comminges read the bees a letter from the pope, and the bees vanished. The saint's body, taken from the ground, gave off a wonderful fragrance. Because the people of the two valleys quarrelled over it, it was placed on a sledge drawn by two cows, one from each valley, let loose to go as they would. They took the road to Larboust and stopped at the place where the saint was buried and a church was built, the church of the present village of Saint-⁠Aventin, one of the masterpieces of Romanesque art in the Pyrenees. The place where he landed after leaping from the tower is marked by a small chapel, the Chapel of the Miracle.

His feast was kept on 13 June with a great pilgrimage until the French Revolution. The Orthodox calendar commemorates him on 7 June, as a saint of the West before the Great Schism (a saint of the undivided Church), by the New Calendar.