Taurinus of Évreux

Saint Taurinus of Évreux is held to be the first bishop of Évreux in Gaul, and he reposed around 412. According to the legend, he evangelized the region and died a martyr.

His largely legendary life is known through a manuscript of the tenth century, itself based on a ninth-⁠century text, written by a monk named Deodatus, who added details according to the standard passions of the time, mixing fact with wonderful stories; the dates and traditions are so garbled that it is impossible to date his episcopacy, though scholars usually place it at the beginning of the fourth or in the middle of the fifth century. He was born in Rome to Tarquinius, a heathen, and Eustycia, a devout Christian, and became bishop of Évreux around 385. His legend states that he faced a demon at Évreux that took three shapes, a lion, a bear and a buffalo, which represented either various deadly sins or the official Roman religion, the worship of Diana and the local agrarian religions. According to Orderic Vitalis, he expelled the demon from the temple of Diana and converted the temple into a church dedicated to the Virgin Mary; two priests of the goddess, Cambise and Zara, tried to stop him from entering but were immobilized when he made the sign of the cross, and then asked to be baptized. A number of miracles are associated with him: he raised a girl, Euphrasia, from the dead after she died in a fire, without a trace of burn marks, which led to 120 converts, and he also revived Marinus, the son of the prefect, who had fallen into a hole. He is commemorated on 11 August as a saint of the undivided Church, by the New Calendar.