Rufillus of Forlimpopoli

Saint Rufillus was the first bishop of Forlimpopoli, in Romagna in Italy, in the fourth and fifth centuries. He is venerated as a saint in the Western tradition and commemorated on 18 July.

According to tradition, together with Saint Mercurialis, bishop of Forlì, he delivered the two cities from a dragon. It is sometimes held that in this way their victory over the Arian error is depicted, in the struggle against which they stood together with Saint Leo, bishop of Montefeltro, Saint Gaudentius, bishop of Rimini, Saint Peter Chrysologus, archbishop of Ravenna, and Saint Geminianus, bishop of Modena. Rufillus died at the age of ninety, at the beginning of the fifth century.

Thirteen medieval churches dedicated to Saint Rufillus are counted. The oldest of them is the church at Forlimpopoli, the town basilica. Raised in the sixth century and included in the tenth century in a Benedictine monastery, it keeps under its altar the core of an early Christian place of worship. In 1964 the saint's relics were brought back, from Forlì, to the basilica that bears his name, at Forlimpopoli.

The Roman Martyrology, on 18 July, mentions at Forlimpopoli, in Romagna, Saint Rufillus, bishop, who is held to have governed this Church first and to have brought the whole rural population to Christ.