Daily Martyrology for July 11

About 550 AD, at Monte Cassino, St. Benedict, abbot. This was the date on which it was claimed that his relics were transferred to the abbey of Fleury-sur-Loire. It is celebrated as Benedict’s feast day, because March 21, the date commemorating his death, falls in Lent.

In 155, St. Pius I, pope. The Muratorian Canon says he was the brother of Hermas, who wrote The Shepherd. Pius was pope when Marcion was excommunicated and when Justin Martyr was teaching in Rome.

In the early eighth century, at Disentis, in Switzerland, St. Placidus, martyr, and St. Sigisbert, abbot. Sigisbert went from the monastery of Luxeuil to be a missionary on the Rhine and then founded a hermitage at Disentis. Placidus was an influential friend of Sigisbert. In or around 720, the local ruler had Placidus killed, and Sigisbert died shortly thereafter. About 750 a monastery which still exists was established on the site of Placidus’ murder.

In 969, at Kiev, St. Olga. She succeeded her pagan husband, Igor, as ruler of the new Russian kingdom of Kiev. She converted to Christianity, but was not notably successful in persuading her subjects to embrace the new faith. Still, with her grandson, St.Vladimir (July 15), she is regarded as the founder of Russian Christianity.

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Our daily martyrology was written by Fr. Hugh Feiss, OSB. Copyright © 2008 by the Monastery of the Ascension, Jerome, ID 83338.