Dacius of Milan

Saint Dacius of Milan was bishop of Milan from about 530 to 552, a shepherd who lived through the hardest times in the city's history and stood with Pope Vigilius in the dispute of the Three Chapters. He is honoured as a saint in the Catholic and the Orthodox Church and is remembered on 14 January.

Before he became bishop Dacius was a monk. He was elected bishop about 530 and soon had to face the worst period in the history of Milan, which began with the terrible famine of 535-536. At that time he obtained grain from the praetorian prefect Cassiodorus to be distributed free to the poor. At the same time the Gothic War (535-554) broke out between the Ostrogoths and the Byzantine Empire. Dacius sided with the Byzantines, and at the end of 537 he went to Rome, with some representatives of the people of Milan, to ask the general Belisarius for a force to free the city. A thousand men under Mundilas were sent, and at first the operation succeeded. But soon the Goths, led by Uraias and allied with the Burgundians, besieged the city, considering the support given to the Byzantines as treason. Milan surrendered in March 539, and Uraias razed it to the ground, killed thirty thousand men and sold the women into slavery. Dacius survived because he was in Rome, and he never returned to Milan.

In 544-545 he was in Constantinople, where he saw the emperor Justinian issue the edict condemning the Three Chapters, that is, certain writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret of Cyrus and Ibas of Edessa. Justinian wanted to reconcile the main body of the Church with the non-⁠Chalcedonians, but many bishops saw in the condemnation a possible denial of the Creed of Chalcedon. The Eastern bishops yielded quickly, but the Latin-⁠speaking ones, like Dacius, stood firm. Justinian summoned Pope Vigilius, who opposed the edict, to Constantinople. Vigilius left Rome in November 545 but delayed in Sicily, where Dacius briefly joined him. On 25 January 547 the pope reached Constantinople and was kept there until he approved the edict. In 550 Dacius rejoined Vigilius, urging him not to come to terms with the emperor. In August 551 both had to take sanctuary in the church of Saint Peter in Constantinople, where the pope was beaten, and on 23 December they escaped again and took refuge in the church of Saint Euphemia at Chalcedon. From there the pope issued an encyclical describing how he had been treated.

Dacius died, probably at Chalcedon, on 5 February 552. His body was later brought to Milan and buried in the church of San Vittore al Corpo, where it is venerated. Pope Gregory the Great relates in his Dialogues that on the way to Constantinople, at Corinth, Dacius sought lodging in a large house which the inhabitants held to have long been haunted by the devil. He entered it without fear, and at night the devil tried to frighten him with the roaring, bleating and screeching of beasts. Dacius rose and rebuked him sharply, saying that through pride he had come to resemble hogs and rats, and the evil spirit was put to shame.