Julian of Lescar

Julian of Lescar is the patron saint of the town of Lescar, in the Pyrénées-⁠Atlantiques department, and is commemorated on 23 August, at the patronal festivities. He passes for the first bishop of Lescar (Beneharnum) about the middle of the 5th century and the evangelizer of Béarn, but this probably belongs to hagiographic legend. Beneharnum was destroyed by the Normans around 840, and in the 10th century a town was refounded on the same site, under the name of Lescar.

The legend rests, on the one hand, on the acts of the Council of Orange of 441, where a Saint Julian appears, with no stated link to Beneharnum, and on the other on the breviary of Lescar of 1541. According to the life of 1541, Bishop Leontius of Trier sent him to Aquitaine to put a stop to idol worship. He set out with two priests, but one collapsed with exhaustion and they returned to Trier. Leontius renewed his command and gave him his pastoral staff, which restored the strength of the exhausted man. Arriving in Béarn, he worked many miracles and was well received. According to the same legend, Julian died around 505. Local veneration, as a saint of the undivided Church.