Honoratus of Milan

Saint Honoratus was Archbishop of Milan in the second half of the sixth century and reposed at Genoa around the year 570. He is commemorated on 8 February as a shepherd who, faced with the invasion of the Lombards, brought a large part of his flock out of danger.

His episcopate

According to the Catalogue of the archbishops of Milan, his episcopate falls between those of Ausanus and Frontonus, in the second half of the sixth century, and is given two years. The same catalogue says that he was buried at Nocetum, a place now in the southern suburbs of Milan, near Chiaravalle, toward Lodi; later versions add that the tomb was in the church of San Giorgio. His episcopate is usually placed between 567 or 568 and 570 or 572. A more recent reconstruction proposes that the years the catalogue gives to Honoratus and to his successor Frontonus be exchanged, giving Honoratus eleven years.

Flight to Genoa

According to the History of the Lombards by Paul the Deacon, Honoratus was bishop of Milan when Alboin, king of the Lombards, took the city in 569. The bishop, together with a large part of the clergy and the inhabitants of the city, fled to Genoa, which remained the seat of the metropolitans of Milan until about the middle of the seventh century. The Roman Martyrology commemorates him thus: at Milan, the burial of Saint Honoratus, bishop, who, under the threat of the Lombard invasion, saved a large part of the people by seeking refuge at Genoa. He is held to have died at Genoa.

It is possible that Honoratus, like the other Milanese bishops of the time, was in schism, since he refused to accept the condemnation of the Three Chapters decided at the Council of Constantinople in 553. Some scholars also take account of an old life of Saint Veranus, bishop of Cavaillon, written late, in the eleventh century, according to which Veranus met Honoratus on a journey in Italy between 585 and 589. Scholars disagree on where the meeting would have taken place, at Milan before 569 or at Genoa, and one of them doubts the story itself.

Veneration

The Roman Catholic Church honours him as a saint, and the Roman Martyrology commemorates him on 8 February.