Our Father among the Saints Amandus, Bishop of Maestricht and Enlightener of Flanders.
Saint Amandus of Maestricht was born of a noble family near Nantes in the west of France towards the end of the sixth century. Renouncing all the advantages of high birth in his youth, he fled to an island to embrace the monastic life where, however, his father found him and demanded that he return, threatening to disinherit him, to which the Saint answered that Jesus Christ was his heritage. He fled to Saint Martin’s monastery in Tours, where he became a monk and was soon ordained into the clergy; but drawn by the fame of the holy Bishop of Bourges, he became a recluse there under his direction, living shut up in a little cell near the cathedral in severe asceticism for fifteen years. Then, inspired to visit Rome to venerate the shrine of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, as he was praying by night before the locked door of the basilica of Saint Peter, the Chief Apostle appeared to him and commanded him to return to Gaul to preach the saving Gospel to the many heathen peoples. His preaching was so successful that he was consecrated regionary bishop, that is, without a fixed see so that he could travel freely from place to place to convert the unbaptized. His efforts were chiefly concentrated in the territory of Ghent (in modern Belgium), which was still heavily infected with idolatry. For a long time the people rejected his preaching and cruelly mistreated him; but when he raised a dead man to life, the fame of the miracle spread quickly and brought multitudes to the Faith.
Saint Amandus also preached to the heathen in Germany, France, and even in the Basque lands in northern Spain. He was eventually compelled to accept a fixed see as the Bishop of Maestricht, which however he resigned after three years to be able to continue preaching far and wide. He founded many monasteries and churches, ransomed countless slaves, rebuked kings, converted multitudes to Christ, and reposed in peace about 684 at the monastery of Elnon in Flanders which he had founded, and which was later called Saint Amand, at the age of about ninety. He is called the Apostle of Flanders and is one of the very greatest church figures of the Orthodox West of the seventh century.
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