John of Parma

John of Parma was a canon of the cathedral of Parma, then a monk and the first abbot of the Benedictine monastery of San Giovanni Evangelista in Parma. He was born at Parma, probably in the second decade of the 10th century, and died there on 22 May, in a year between 988 and 994, probably 990. He is remembered on 22 May.

It is said that he was the son of the nobleman Gerardo da Correggio, but many historians consider this report unreliable; his belonging to a noble family seems nevertheless almost certain. As a young man he was entrusted to the chapter of the cathedral of Parma and became a canon. He went several times on pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and on his sixth journey to Jerusalem he put on the monastic habit.

Around 980 Bishop Sigifredo II of Parma founded, on the site of the old oratory of Saint Columbanus, the Benedictine monastery of San Giovanni Evangelista, and, in a year between 981 and 987, named the canon John, returned from his last pilgrimage, as its first abbot. As abbot, John promoted many of the precepts of monastic discipline upheld by Abbot Majolus of Cluny, whom he perhaps met at Ravenna, at a provincial council. He established the free election of the abbot by the monks and openly condemned simony. To the last years of his life belong some miracles told in his Life, written in the 11th century by a Benedictine monk of the same monastery, on the direct testimony of monks who had known him. He brought many young men and prelates to the monastic life.

He was buried in the cloister of the monastery, in the presence of Bishop Sigifredo, and the place was for a long time the scene of wonderful events. The Roman Catholic Church proclaimed him a saint before the 14th century, and in 1534 he was chosen co-⁠patron of Parma, alongside Saint Hilary of Poitiers. He is a saint of the West; no Orthodox synodal canonization is known.