Constantius of Capri

Saint Constantius of Capri (Costanzo) was a bishop and enlightener of some regions of southern Italy, and the patron of the island of Capri, in the seventh or eighth century, according to some sources dead near Marina Grande. He is venerated in the Roman Catholic Church; our sources mention no Orthodox veneration. His commemoration is on 14 May, but his name is not written in the Roman Martyrology.

News of his life is very fragmentary. Some historians think that he should be identified with Patriarch Constantine I, whose commemoration the Greek Church keeps on 9 August. It can be said with certainty only that he bore the labour of evangelical preaching against heretics in the south of the Italian peninsula, reaching Capri, where he died. In the opinion of the local people his labours on the island were such that, after his death, the inhabitants dedicated a church to him, which for several centuries was also the diocesan cathedral of Capri. The saint's relics rest partly in the church, partly in the crypt of San Guglielmo at Montevergine.

According to another source, his body was placed in a barrel; the homilies Sermo de virtute Constantii and Sermo de transitu s. Constantii date from the end of the tenth century, when the saint's protection was invoked at Capri and at Amalfi against Saracen raiders. How he came to be on the island of Capri is undocumented and shrouded in legend. In the Catalogus of the monk Filippo Ferrari (died 1626), Constantius is described as of imperial lineage and Bishop of Constantinople. He may have been a bishop who fled from Africa to Italy. The church of San Costanzo is located between Marina Grande and Anacapri. The feast of Saint Constantius is celebrated on 14 May and includes the commemoration of his arrival on Capri, which according to tradition occurred about 739. A reliquary at Montevergine contains a bone with the label Ossa S. Costantio E.C. (bishop and confessor).