Litorius of Tours

Saint Litorius (Lidorius) was the second bishop of the city of Tours in Gaul, from 337 or 338 until his death, on 13 September 370, 371 or 372. He ordained the first Christian churches of the city. Our sources call him a saint of the Roman Catholic Church, honoured in the Roman Martyrology on 13 September, and show no formal Orthodox veneration; he is a Gallic saint of the time of the undivided Church.

The source

The chief source is the "History of the Franks" of Gregory of Tours, who for the deeds of his predecessors used older sources, probably on the pattern of the "Liber Pontificalis". He was from Tours and, by all signs, of unknown family, so the bishopric was not owed to connections with the city's aristocracy. According to Gregory he was the second bishop of Tours, after Saint Gatian; between them the see remained, he says, thirty-⁠seven years without a shepherd, because the persecution by the Roman pagans prevented the election of a new bishop. Only in 337 or 338 ("in the first year of Constans", by Gregory's chronology) could Litorius take the see. Gregory places the beginning of Gatian's episcopate in 250 and its end in 300 or 301; most probably Gatian died somewhat later.

His deeds

Gregory says that Litorius was "a very pious man". His chief deeds were the building of the first Christian churches in Tours, with the increase in the number of Christians in the city. The first was the "episcopal church", for the daily services with the bishop, later called the church of Saint Litorius and used for a time as burial place of the bishops; in the second half of the sixth century, at Gregory's order, it was restored and enlarged. Most historians think that, consecrated in the name of Saint Gatian, it was rebuilt several times until it became the cathedral of Tours today, though some think it is another building, for example a chapel demolished in 1357. At Litorius's order the house of a former Roman senator was turned into the first basilica of Tours. In his time there probably did not yet exist a diocese as a church unit: the bishop's jurisdiction covered only the believers of the city; the metropolis centred at Tours was made, it seems, under his successor, Saint Martin.

His end and veneration

After thirty-⁠three years of service he died on 13 September and was buried in the episcopal church founded by him. His successor was Saint Martin of Tours, ordained on 4 July of the next year, who ordered the remains of Gatian moved from the city cemetery and buried beside Litorius's grave. In the ninth century, for fear of the Vikings, the relics of Litorius and Gatian were moved several times; a bull of 871 says they were at the monastery of Saint Medard. On 4 February 1374 they were taken to the cathedral, and in 1562, in the wars of religion, his relics were destroyed by the Huguenots. Venerated as a saint at Tours at the latest from the sixth century, he is mentioned as a saint in the martyrologies of the ninth century (Hieronymian, Ado, Rabanus Maurus). In the Middle Ages he was also venerated at Venice, where in 1372 some relics were brought, but the identification was wrong, they belonging to Saint Ligorius of Greece; this was established in the second half of the sixteenth century.