Victor of Naples

Saint Victor of Naples (Victor I of Naples) was bishop of Naples at the end of the fifth century, who died no earlier than the year 496. Our sources show him venerated as a saint in the Roman Catholic Church, with commemoration on 8 February, and show no Orthodox glorification.

The main sources about him are the Life of Saint Severinus by Eugippius and the first part of the Acts of the Bishops of Naples, written at the turn of the eighth and ninth centuries by an anonymous author; Bishop Victor is also mentioned in several letters of Pope Gelasius I. No information survives about his origin and youth. He ascended the episcopal throne of Naples after the death of Soter. The date is not known: the only dated mention of Soter in sources close to his time is from 465, while Victor is mentioned as bishop in the 490s. Medieval authors place his government in the time of the Byzantine emperor Zeno and Pope Gelasius I, which allows his enthronement to be dated no later than April 491, when the emperor died.

With Victor's consent, in 494 the relics of Saint Severinus, who had died in 482, were moved to a basilica recently built in the palace of Lucullus. Some years earlier these relics had been taken from Noricum to Italy by his disciples, who feared that the saint's remains might suffer in the war that had begun between Odoacer and the Rugii. The move of the relics to Naples was made at the request of a pious woman, Barbaria (probably the widow of the general Orestes and mother of the last Western Roman emperor, Romulus Augustulus, who was in exile there), and with the support of Pope Gelasius I. According to Eugippius, the move was accompanied by many wonderful healings of the Neapolitans. At the same time Bishop Victor founded in the palace of Lucullus a monastic community, whose first abbot was Marcian. Later this monastery, known throughout Italy for its large library, was consecrated in honour of Saint Severinus. Under Bishop Victor two churches were also built outside Naples: one in honour of the Protomartyr Stephen, the other in honour of Saint Euphemia the All-⁠praised.

To Victor were addressed at least seven letters of Pope Gelasius I, in which the vicar of the Holy See wrote to the bishop about the church disputes of the time. Among them, in a letter of 496, Victor and other Italian bishops were commanded to give no help to the oppressors of Bishop Epiphanius of Benevento; this is the last mention of Victor in sources close to his time. According to the Acts of the Bishops of Naples, Victor died after eleven years and ten months of governing the diocese and was buried in the church of Saint Euphemia, which he had founded. His successor was Saint Stephen, first certainly mentioned in March 499. Soon after his death Victor began to be venerated as a saint by the Neapolitans, as shown by the mention of his name in a martyrology of the ninth century.