Maurus of Verona

Saint Maurus of Verona was bishop of Verona in northern Italy in the seventh century, when Italy formed part of the Lombard kingdom. He is venerated as a saint in the Roman Catholic Church; our sources mention no Orthodox veneration. His commemoration is on 30 October, and in some sources also on 21 November.

Little is known of his life. In the official chronology of the bishops of Verona, compiled in the tenth century, Saint Maurus stands thirty-⁠second, after Saint Peter and before Saint John. But more recent research shows that between Peter and Maurus there may have been a Concessus II (which may not be a name but may mean one holding the place), then comes Saint Maurus (tradition places his episcopate between 612 and 622), after whom comes Saint Romanus. These names were read by De Rossi in an old chronicle, but today they can no longer be read in it. Despite the difficulties in dating and ordering the bishops of Verona, there is no doubt about the existence of Maurus, since his name is also found in the Ritmo Pipini, in the Lapide Stefaniana of the tenth century, in the old lectionary of the cathedral and in the martyrologies of Verona and of Rome.

It seems that the Lombards did not interfere in the religious life of Verona, and Saint Maurus is called the first bishop under whom the diocese of Verona reached full liturgical union with the Holy See. Some time after his election, Maurus left Verona and settled in the mountains that the chronicles call the Salinian, where he led a life of solitude, devoted to prayer and penance. It is not known whether he meanwhile continued to govern the diocese. Tradition says that, not long before his death, being very old and worn out, he set out back toward Verona, but died on the way, on the hill of San Felice, which is now part of the city.

Tradition also attributes to the episcopate of Maurus and his successors the laying of the foundations of several churches later well known and the founding of some convents. According to the tenth-⁠century list of bishops, the date of his death is 21 November 622, but some modern sources give about 600. In 1961 the Congregation of Sacred Rites, on the proposal of the bishop of Verona, gathered the commemoration of the holy bishops of Verona into a single feast on 30 October.