Nectarius () was a semi-legendary, if not spurious,
bishop of Vienne
The Archbishopric of Vienne, named after its episcopal seat in Vienne in the Isère département of southern France, was a metropolitan Roman Catholic archdiocese. It is now part of the Archdiocese of Lyon.
History
The legend according to wh ...
believed to have lived in the 5th century. He is considered a pre-congregational saint of the
Roman 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 ...
, and his
feast day
The calendar of saints is the traditional Christian method of organizing a liturgical year by associating each day with one or more saints and referring to the day as the feast day or feast of said saint. The word "feast" in this context does n ...
is locally celebrated on July 1 in the
Diocese of Grenoble-Vienne.
Biography
Little is known about him.
Archbishop Ado, writing in the 9th century, placed him under the reign of Emperor
Constantius II
Constantius II (; ; 7 August 317 – 3 November 361) was Roman emperor from 337 to 361. His reign saw constant warfare on the borders against the Sasanian Empire and Germanic peoples, while internally the Roman Empire went through repeated civ ...
(337-361):
There also shone at that time Nectarius, bishop of Vienne, remarkable in the teaching of the faith, who presided over the venerable synod of Vaison, preached and taught publicly in his church that the nature of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit was One as well as their power, their divine essence and their virtue. (Adon de Vienne, ''Chronicle, VI''.)[Gérard Lucas, ''Vienne dans les textes grecs et latins: Chroniques littéraires sur l'histoire de la cité, des Allobroges à la fin du Ve siècle de notre ère'', MOM Éditions, coll. « Travaux de la Maison de l’Orient et de la Méditerranée », 2018, 345 pp. (), pp. 247–270: "Adon de Vienne, Chronique", specially the ''Tableau récapitulatif de la liste des évêques de Vienne jusqu'à Avit''.]
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The historian
Ulysse Chevalier
Cyr Joseph Ulysse Chevalier (24 February 1841 – 27 October 1923) was a French Catholic priest, bibliographer, and historian who specialized in the European Middle Ages. He is principally remembered for his ("Repertory of historical source ...
(1879) partly takes up the tradition.
[Ulysse Chevalier, ''Notice chronologico-historique sur les archevêques de Vienne: d'après des documents paléographiques inédits'', Vienne, 1879, p. 6]
online version
The historian
Louis Duchesne
Louis Marie Olivier Duchesne (; 13 September 1843 – 21 April 1922) was a French priest, philology, philologist, teacher and a critical historian of Christianity and Roman Catholic liturgy and institutions.
Life
Descended from a family of Bri ...
(1894), author of a study on the first bishops of Vienne, only mentions him in passing.
Council of Vaison
Although Ulysse Chevalier supports the presence of Nectarius at the synod of Vaison, around 350,
Claude Charvet, in his history of the church of Vienne (1761), says nothing of him.
[Claude Charvet, ''Histoire de la sainte église de Vienne'', 1761, Chez C. Cizeron, p.&50]
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Gérard Lucas states that "the Council of Vaison to which Ado refers is not retained in the list of councils established by C.J. Hefele, in his History of the Councils."
Historically, only two councils were held at Vaison, the first in 442 and the second in 529. He concludes that "Ado himself is probably the origin of the confusion, in consequence of his false chronology", which he argues was composed by Ado to provide a "champion" bishop for the church in Vienne, of which he was himself archbishop.
References
Bishops of Vienne
French saints
Year of birth missing
440s deaths
{{France-saint-stub