Canius of Atella

Holy Hieromartyr Canius (Canione) was bishop of Acerenza, born, according to the story, in Iulia, near Carthage, in the first half of the third century, and patron of the cities of Calitri and Acerenza, and of the archdiocese of Acerenza. He is remembered on 25 May. The main source of his life is the Passio San Canionis, preserved in Acerenza Cathedral. He may have been of the Roman gens Cania.

Confession and flight

According to this source, Canius became bishop of Acerenza. In the persecution of Diocletian, before the prefect Pigrasius, he refused to bow to idols and to acknowledge the divinity of the emperor. For this he was subjected to tortures and then imprisoned, in the hope that hunger and wounds would break his resistance. Yet he continued to proclaim the Gospel and, by his words and his patience, all those near him turned to the Lord. When the prefect was told of the prisoner's firmness, he ordered his head to be cut off. A dreadful storm, with an earthquake, scattered the soldiers, and in the confusion Canius, with some of the faithful, left the city in a boat, on the river Volturno.

Miracles and death

At Atella (on the site of the present hamlet of Sant'Arpino), where he preached the Gospel, many miracles were attributed to him. In the amphitheatre of Atella, a man was healed in the midst of a heart attack by the touch of Canius's hand, a blind woman named Eugenia regained her sight, and a boy was healed of demonic possession. When he was old and ill, Canius withdrew to a solitary place, where he died. Bishop Elpidius of Atella, learning miraculously of his death, raised on that place a little shrine, to protect the saint's body.

Relics and veneration

About the year 800 Bishop Leo of Acerenza built a cathedral on the ruins of an old shrine and moved there, from Atella, the body of Canius. In 1080, according to the chronicler Lupo Protospata, the body of Canius was found again, and the newly rebuilt cathedral and the diocese were put under his protection. In 1543, on the occasion of a pastoral visit by Cardinal Saraceni, it was seen that the body of Saint Canius could not be seen, being under a large altar. In the ambulatory of the present cathedral of Acerenza, beneath the altar of Saint Canius, his crozier is still preserved, a relic shown and venerated, held to witness to the calling of the diocese of Acerenza to the work of evangelization. Saint Canius is also venerated in the parish that bears his name, San Canione at Sant'Arpino, in the province of Caserta, where an ancient building, now called the Romitorio di San Canione, is dedicated to him. It is believed to be an ancient Christian oratory of the Atellan period and seems to have been the place where Canius's body was kept before the move to Acerenza.