John the Lamb

John the Lamb (in French Jean l'Agneau, in Latin Agnus) was the twenty-⁠fifth bishop of Tongres in the 7th century and is venerated as a saint in the Western Church.

He was a farmer and the son of a rich landowner, and lived so piously at Tihange, near Huy in present-⁠day Belgium, that he was chosen to succeed the twenty-⁠fourth bishop of the diocese of Tongres, Maastricht and Liège. The year of his election is given differently by the sources: 596, 625 or 626, 631, or 639 or 640. These sources are drawn chiefly from his life in the Gesta episcoporum Leodiensium by Abbot Heriger of Lobbes. He served as bishop for only six years and reposed, it seems, at Maastricht. According to his own wish he was buried in the chapel of Saints Cosmas and Damian, which he had built in a tower of the castle at Huy.

He is commemorated on 25 July.