Epiphanius of Pavia

Saint Epiphanius of Pavia was bishop of the city of Pavia in Italy from 466 or 467 until his repose on 21 January 496. He was known as a peacemaker. The main source for his life is the Life written by his successor Ennodius, who knew him personally.

He was born around 438 or 439. At eight he entered the household of Bishop Crispin and learned to read, write and take shorthand; he was a lector, at eighteen a subdeacon, at twenty a deacon. Crispin, on his deathbed, named him as successor, and he, though he resisted, was consecrated bishop. Soon afterwards he was asked to intervene between the emperor Anthemius and the barbarian leader Ricimer, appealing to both for peace. In 475 the emperor Julius Nepos sent him as an envoy to the Visigothic king Euric, and peace was concluded.

When Odoacer destroyed Pavia, Epiphanius was largely responsible for rebuilding the city and its churches. He paid the ransom of some of his flock, among them his sister Honorata, who had been abducted from the monastery of Saint Vincent. After Theodoric the Great defeated Odoacer, Epiphanius went to Ravenna and asked the king to restore the civic rights of the Romans who had supported Odoacer; Theodoric granted this, on condition that the bishop negotiate with the Burgundians for the ransom of the captives taken from Liguria. Epiphanius died from the hardships of a winter journey to Burgundy, in the fifty-⁠eighth year of his life and the thirtieth of his service to the Church.

His relics were moved in 963 to Hildesheim, where they are kept in a great shrine in the cathedral, though at Pavia the belief persisted that relics of his remained there too; in 1834 Bishop Tosi recognised the authenticity of those at Pavia. He is a saint of the undivided Church, commemorated on 21 January (new style).