Menna of Lorraine

Holy Martyr Menna of Lorraine (also called Manna) was a virgin of Lorraine, counted among the first saints of the diocese of Toul, in the province of Belgica prima. She died as a martyr on 3 October 362, in the place called Fontenet, in Puzieux, Vosges, in the persecution of the time of the emperor Julian. Her commemoration is on 3 October and on 15 May. She is a saint of the Roman Catholic Church; our sources mention no Orthodox veneration.

At Fontenet a chapel has been preserved in which the saint's relics rest. At Poussay, on the site of an old abbey, in the commune of Mirecourt, of which Saint Menna is the patron, there is the tree of Saint Menna, which recalls her life. She was linked with Saints Eucharius and Elaptius.

According to the Life of Saint Menne, she was the daughter of the governor Baccius and a woman named Litrude or Lientrude, and the younger sister of the holy cephalophores Elophe, Eucharius and Libaria, as well as of Susanna and Oda. Saint Menna is commemorated on 3 October and on 15 May, the day of the translation of her relics to the abbey of Poussay, made in 1026 by Bishop Bruno of Toul. Today this commemoration is sometimes moved to the second Sunday of May.

Saint Menna was baptized and received her spiritual education, it seems, from Sanctissimus, bishop of Châlons. She wished to receive monastic tonsure, but her father opposed it, for he intended to marry her off. Her confessor did not give her a blessing to defy her father. But, according to tradition, an angel of the Lord appeared and tonsured her a nun. She began to live as a recluse between Poussay and Puzieux: first at Blénod-⁠lès-⁠Toul, then in the place called Fontenet.

She is venerated in many places, churches and chapels, among them Blénod-⁠lès-⁠Toul, Crantenoy, Poussay, Brigmémont and others, such as Deycimont and Madecourt. Some consider the surviving Life of Saint Menna implausible.