Innocent of Le Mans

Saint Innocent of Le Mans was bishop of the city of Le Mans in Gaul in the first half of the sixth century and reposed in 559. The Orthodox calendar says he shepherded for over forty years, while the French sources give him the years between 532 and 543. He was probably a native of the place and was brought up and taught by Bishop Victor II, his godfather.

In his time a religious movement began in the diocese that lasted nearly two centuries and covered it with monasteries, priories and hospitals. Innocent called hermits into Lower Maine and Passais and, with the help of Saint Mesmin, abbot of Micy near Orléans, organised this work. He sent for monks to Italy, to Saint Benedict, who sent Saint Maurus and his disciples, but they never reached Le Mans and settled near Angers, since the saint had died in the meantime. He took part in the second council of Orléans (533) and the fourth (541).

He asked the archbishop of Milan for the relics of the holy martyrs Gervasius and Protasius and placed them in the cathedral that he dedicated to their names. He enlarged and adorned the cathedral begun by Victeur, built a chapel for the relic of the arm of Saint George and rebuilt the church of Le Pré, where he placed a convent of nuns with an abbess named Adnette. He is commemorated on 19 June as a saint of the West before the Great Schism (a saint of the undivided Church), by the New Calendar.