Saint Barbatianus

Barbatianus, sometimes anglicized Barbatian, was a Syrian hermit, monk and healer who served as the confessor of the Empress Galla Placidia, who lived in Ravenna between 417 and 450. According to the standard hagiography, Barbatianus was from Antioch. He came to Rome with a companion around 418, shortly after the election of Pope Boniface I. There he was identified as a wonderworker by Galla Placidia, who had him heal a servant of hers. He performed many miracles in Rome before returning with the empress to Ravenna. In Ravenna, he helped her acquire a relic of John the Evangelist for her new church and performed many more miracles. When he died, under the orders of Bishop Peter Chrysologus (r. 431–450), his body was embalmed with aromatics and entombed beside the altar of John the Baptist. The earliest source to mention Barbatianus is the ninth-century Book of Pontiffs of the Church of Ravenna by Andreas Agnellus. In the tenth century, he became the subject of an anonymous Latin biography, the Vita Barbatiani, inspired by the brief mention by Agnellus and the existence of a church dedicated to him in Ravenna. According to Agnellus: It is possible that Agnellus misinterpreted an inscription referring to Bishop Peter III and the general Baduarius, misidentifying the consecrating bishop with Barbatianus' contemporary. The Vita Barbatiani was crafted from a variety of sources to give its account historical authenticity. These include an account of miraculous healings composed by Sophronius of Jerusalem, elements from the Liber Pontificalis and a biography of Pope Sylvester I. Although the creative reworking of tradition leaves "facts concerning the actual life of a man living in the fifth century ... ultimately unreachable", the work is not a mere forgery. By the fifteenth century, there existed a vernacular Italian translation. There is a modern English translation from the Latin. Barbatianus came to be venerated as a saint.