Donatian of Reims

The Holy Hierarch Donatian of Reims (Donatien, Donat) was the eighth bishop of Reims, in Gaul, in the fourth century. He fell asleep in 389, and in 863 his relics were moved to Bruges, of which he is considered heavenly protector. His feast is on 14 October (in the diocese of Reims, 12 October).

What is known

News of his life has not been preserved. He is believed to have been born at Rome, then sent to Gaul and to have succeeded Maternian, bishop of the city of Remi (now Reims). His veneration spread only after, in the ninth century, his relics were taken to Flanders, to Bruges: in 863 the count of Flanders, Baldwin I, moved them to the church of Saint-⁠Agricol de Reims at Bruges, which took his name, and after the founding of the see at Bruges it became the cathedral. In 1799 the cathedral was destroyed, but the saint's relics were saved and in 1834 placed in the church of the Holy Saviour, now the cathedral of Bruges.

The legend

A legend says that, as a child, he was thrown into a river; a holy man took five candles and placed them on a water wheel, which stopped where the current had carried the child, and the boy was drawn out whole and unharmed. According to another version, the wheel is tied to the story of Donatian's death, whom his persecutors are said to have drowned in the Tiber; the bishop's friends set a wheel with candles on the water, which stopped in the place where the drowned man's body lay.

In iconography Donatian is shown wearing an episcopal mitre, holding a water wheel with lighted candles.