Marinus

Venerable Marinus was a stonemason from Dalmatia, a deacon and hermit, who lived in the fourth century on Mount Titano in Italy. From the community gathered around him grew in time San Marino, one of the oldest surviving republics in the world, which bears his name. The Church commemorates him on 4 September.

His life is known from accounts written down many centuries later; the earliest manuscripts that speak of him date from the tenth century. According to tradition, Marinus was born on the island of Arba, today Rab in Croatia, on the far shore of the Adriatic, and was a stonemason by trade. He crossed into Italy at the time of the persecution under Diocletian.

One account says that he came to Rimini, where the town was being rebuilt, and found among the workmen many Christians, once people of standing, sentenced to hard labour for refusing to sacrifice to the gods. Marinus comforted them and helped them as far as he could. Bishop Gaudentius of Rimini ordained him deacon.

Tradition also tells that a woman troubled in mind falsely accused him of being the husband who had abandoned her. To escape the slander, Marinus withdrew to Mount Titano. There he built a small church and a cell and lived as a hermit, in prayer and stillness.

The report of his holiness spread and others came to live the ascetic life near him. According to tradition, a lady of Rimini who owned the mountain gave it to him. Marinus reposed in the Lord, as the legend says, in the winter of 366. Tradition ascribes to him, at the end of his life, words by which he left his followers free of any foreign lordship, and later generations kept them as a foundation of their liberty.

Historians judge that the story of his life mixes legends and miracles with a kernel of fact; the earliest certain evidence of a monastic community there comes from the fifth or sixth century. Saint Marinus is venerated by Orthodox and Catholics alike, and San Marino holds him as its patron. His feast is kept on 4 September.