Saint Castor of Karden () was a

priest A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deity, deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in parti ...

and

hermit A hermit, also known as an eremite (adjectival form: hermitic or eremitic) or solitary, is a person who lives in seclusion. Eremitism plays a role in a variety of religions. Description In Christianity, the term was originally applied to a Chr ...

of the 4th century who is venerated as a

saint In Christianity, Christian belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of sanctification in Christianity, holiness, imitation of God, likeness, or closeness to God in Christianity, God. However, the use of the ...

by the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

. Castor was a pupil of

Maximinus of Trier Maximin (born at Silly near Poitiers; — Poitiers 12 September 346) was the sixth bishop of Trier. His feast is 29 May. Life Maximin was an opponent of Arianism, and was close to the courts of Constantine II and Constans. He harboured as an ...

around 345 AD, and was

ordained Ordination is the process by which individuals are Consecration in Christianity, consecrated, that is, set apart and elevated from the laity class to the clergy, who are thus then authorized (usually by the religious denomination, denominationa ...

as a priest by Maximinus. Like his teacher, Castor may have come from the region of

Aquitaine Aquitaine (, ; ; ; ; Poitevin-Saintongeais: ''Aguiéne''), archaic Guyenne or Guienne (), is a historical region of southwestern France and a former Regions of France, administrative region. Since 1 January 2016 it has been part of the administ ...

. At his ordination, Castor settled at Karden on the

Moselle The Moselle ( , ; ; ) is a river that rises in the Vosges mountains and flows through north-eastern France and Luxembourg to western Germany. It is a bank (geography), left bank tributary of the Rhine, which it joins at Koblenz. A sm ...

as a hermit with various companions, where they dedicated themselves to an ascetic life and established a small religious community. Castor's companions there included the Aquitanian

pilgrim The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , , "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star. Computer scientists and mathematicians often vocalize it as ...

Saint Potentinus, and Potentinus’ two sons Felicius and Simplicius. Castor died at Karden at an advanced age.

Veneration

By the year 791 AD, there was already a

reliquary A reliquary (also referred to as a ''shrine'', ''Chasse (casket), chasse'', or ''phylactery'') is a container for relics. A portable reliquary, or the room in which one is stored, may also be called a ''feretory''. Relics may be the purported ...

dedicated to Castor, which was

translated Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''transla ...

to the Paulinuskirchen at Karden. In 836, the relics were translated to what became the

Basilica of St. Castor The Basilica of Saint Castor ( or ''Kastorkirche'') is the oldest church in Koblenz in the German state of Rhineland Palatinate. It is located near Deutsches Eck at the confluence of the Rhine and the Moselle. A fountain called '' Kastorbrunnen'' ...

Koblenz Koblenz ( , , ; Moselle Franconian language, Moselle Franconian: ''Kowelenz'') is a German city on the banks of the Rhine (Middle Rhine) and the Moselle, a multinational tributary. Koblenz was established as a Roman Empire, Roman military p ...

by Archbishop Hetto of Trier.

References

External links

Kastor - ein Mann aus Aquitanien

Kastor van Karden

{{DEFAULTSORT:Castor Of Karden Saints of Germania 4th-century Christian saints 4th-century Frankish people German hermits People from Cochem-Zell