Saint Peter the Venerable

Peter the Venerable (c. 1092 – 25 December 1156), also known as Peter of Montboissier, was the abbot of the Benedictine abbey of Cluny. He has been honored as a saint although he was never canonized in the Middle Ages. Since in 1862 Pope Pius IX confirmed his historical cult, and the Martyrologium Romanum, issued by the Holy See in 2004, regards him as a blessed. Born to Blessed Raingarde in Auvergne, Peter was "dedicated to God" at birth and given to the monastery at Sauxillanges of the Congregation of Cluny where he took his vows at age seventeen. By the age of twenty he gained a professorship and was appointed prior of the monastery of Vézelay, transferring later to the monastery at Domène. Success at Vézelay and Domène led to his election as abbot general of the order, aged thirty. After his predecessor, the abbot Pontius, had been deposed by the pope, Peter became a tireless reformer of the Cluniac order, in the face of criticism from other orders and prominent monks and theologians, including the Cistercian monk St. Bernard of Clairvaux. His defence of his order against critics and his introduction of radical reforms, earned him the appellation of "venerable". Peter, as an associate of national and religious leaders, attended many of the international religious councils. At the Council of Pisa in 1134 he supported the cause of Pope Innocent II, and the Council of Reims in 1147 and helped avert a Church schism. He defended the rationalistic Trinitarianism of the French theologian Peter Abelard against the sentence of the Council of Sens, granting Abelard hospitality at Cluny and working towards the eventual reconciliation of Abelard and his principal accuser, Bernard of Clairvaux. Peter granted Abelard a posthumous absolution at the request of Heloise. Peter collected sources on, and writings about, Islam (see below) and spent a long sabbatical in Spain with Islamic scholars of all ranks.