Maurus

Saint Maurus of Poreč is, according to legend, the first known bishop by name of the city of Parentium (today Poreč) in Istria, and he lived in the third century.

The legend says that he died a martyr in the persecution of Diocletian; nothing else is known of his life. He was often called "Maurus Confessor", which was sometimes understood as death while confessing the faith, and at other times, later, as a sign that he survived the persecution and was only a priest, not a bishop. His veneration in Istria as early as the fourth century cannot be proved; the sources begin only in the fifth and sixth centuries, and perhaps he was merged in memory with a martyr of the same name.

His bones were buried at the place of his ministry, in an oratory; in the middle of the sixth century the relics were moved to the basilica of Euphrasius, where there is also a mosaic with the saint's image. In the seventh century Pope John IV, of Dalmatian origin, brought them to Rome, together with the relics of other Dalmatian and Istrian saints, to the chapel of Saint Venantius at the Lateran baptistery; later they reached Genoa, and in 1934 they returned to Poreč.

He is the patron of the city of Poreč and one of the patrons of the diocese of Poreč-⁠Pula, and is also honoured in Italy. His commemoration is kept on 21 November in the Western calendar. He is a saint of the undivided Church, without synodal canonization.