Maurice

Saint Maurice the martyr was, according to tradition, the commander of the Theban Legion, made up of Christian soldiers from Egypt, killed around 287 because they refused to offer sacrifice to idols. He is one of the most venerated saints of the West. Orthodox calendars of Western saints commemorate him on 22 September, together with his companions.

The Theban Legion

The earliest account of the martyrdom is the public letter of Bishop Eucherius of Lyons to Bishop Salvius, written around the middle of the fifth century. According to it, Maurice was commander of the Theban Legion, made up of Christian soldiers from Thebes in Egypt, whom tradition counts at about six thousand six hundred. The legion had been called to Gaul to help the emperor Maximian put down a revolt of the Bagaudae. It was ordered to clear the pass of the Great Saint Bernard across the Alps.

Martyrdom

Before the battle the soldiers were told to offer sacrifice to the pagan gods and pay homage to the emperor. Maurice pledged his men's military obedience to the emperor, but said that service to God stood above all else. When Maximian ordered them to kill the local Christians, the legion refused. The emperor then ordered a decimation, the killing of every tenth soldier. The men refused again, encouraged by Maurice, and a second decimation followed. Seeing that nothing moved them, Maximian ordered all the rest to be put to death. According to tradition the soldiers did not defend themselves. Among those killed with Maurice were the officers Candidus and Exuperius. The place in present-⁠day Switzerland, called Agaunum, is now Saint-⁠Maurice. Other versions say that the legion refused only after learning that innocent Christians lived in a town they had just destroyed, or that the emperor killed them when they refused to sacrifice to the gods.

Historians of the Church debate whether the story preserves a real event, perhaps a smaller one. The veneration of the martyrs of Agaunum is, however, very old.

Veneration

At the place of the martyrdom King Sigismund of Burgundy founded in 515 the monastery of Saint-⁠Maurice d'Agaune, one of the oldest in the West, where the services were sung without interruption. The cult of Maurice spread across Europe in the Middle Ages. He became a patron of the German emperors. In 926 Henry the Fowler ceded the canton of Aargau to the abbey in return for Maurice's lance, sword and spurs, and the sword and spurs were part of the coronation regalia of emperors until 1916. In 961 Otto I brought his relics to Magdeburg. Over 650 religious foundations bear his name, and the town of St. Moritz and many places called Saint-⁠Maurice are named after him. He is usually shown in armour, and is regarded as a patron of soldiers.