Potentinus

Saint Potentinus was a devout layman from Aquitaine who lived in the 4th century and ended his life as a hermit at Karden on the Moselle. He is known mostly through a late and legendary life written in the 9th century.

According to tradition Potentinus and his sons Felicius and Simplicius belonged to a noble family of Aquitaine. On a pilgrimage they came to Trier, where Bishop Maximin received them and sent them to live as hermits at Karden, where Saint Castor had earlier lived in solitude. They remained there to the end. Some accounts say that Potentinus died as a martyr, slain with arrows or an axe.

Their relics were brought from Karden to Steinfeld in the Eifel before the year 930, and Potentinus became the patron of that place. Pope Pius X confirmed their veneration by a decree of 12 August 1908. Their feast is on 18 June, and the translation of the relics is kept on 3 June, by the Western calendar (new style). The reliquary of Saint Potentinus, a masterpiece of goldsmith work from Trier of the first half of the 13th century, is kept in the Louvre in Paris. He is honored as a saint of the undivided Church.