St. Avitus of Vienne

St. Avitus of Vienne was born about 450, of a distinguished Gallo-Roman senatorial family, and became bishop of Vienne in Gaul about 490, succeeding his own father in that see. He was a leading churchman of his age in the kingdom of the Burgundians, whose kings were Arians, denying the true divinity of Christ, while their Gallo-Roman subjects held the Catholic faith.

A man of learning and eloquence, Avitus labored by preaching, writing, and personal influence to win the Burgundians from Arianism to the Catholic faith, and he had the joy of seeing King Sigismund embrace orthodoxy. He wrote treatises against the Arians and other heretics, a large body of letters valuable for the history of the age, and a celebrated poem in several books on the events of the Book of Genesis and the history of salvation, which some scholars have thought an influence on later Christian epic. He also helped defend the authority of the see of Rome. He died about 518, and is venerated as a saint, his memory kept on 5 February.