He is honoured both in the Greek Menaion and Roman Martyrology. See his ancient anonymous life in Surius and in the Acta Sanctorum, January 10. Cf. also DCB., vol. iii, p. 185; and K. Krumbacher, Geschichte der Byzantinischen Literatur, p. 663.

Saint Marcian, Presbyter of the Great Church
Born at Rome and in his youth he received a first-rate education in Constantinople. After the death of his parents, St Marcian used his inheritance on the building, renovation and embellishment of churches. Thus, he built a church dedicated to the holy Martyr Anastasia (December 22), richly adorned it, and had the holy relics of the saint transferred to it. He also built a church of the Great Martyr Irene (May 5), and the church of St Isidore.

His moral purity and strict asceticism were resented by those who were slothful and avaricious, for they regarded his life as an unspoken criticism of their own lack of virtue. However, his meekness and silence overcame their slanders and brought him to the attention of the Patriarch, who ordained St Marcian a presbyter and appointed him treasurer of the Church of Constantinople.

From his wealth St Marcian distributed generous alms, and distinguished himself by non-covetousness, denying himself in everything. In accord with the command of the Savior, he did not even have an extra set of clothes, which he might need should he be caught in inclement weather. Having received a gift of wonderworking, St Marcian healed the sick and cast out devils. St Marcian died between 472-474 and was buried at the monastery of St John the Forerunner at Constantinople. 
Saint Marcian, Presbyter of the Great Church, was born at Rome and in his youth he received a first-rate education in Constantinople. After the death of his parents, St Marcian used his inheritance on the building, renovation and embellishment of churches. Thus, he built a church dedicated to the holy Martyr Anastasia (December 22), richly adorned it, and had the holy relics of the saint transferred to it. He also built a church of the Great Martyr Irene (May 5), and the church of St Isidore.

660 St. John Camillus the Good Bishop of Milan

681  Pope

This pope restored St Wilfrid to the see of York, and granted privileges to several English monasteries. A terrible plague, which devastated Rome at this period may have been at least, the indirect cause of his own death, which occurred in 681.

St Agatho lived in troubled times. The reason he alleges in excusing the bad Greek of the legates whom he sent to Constantinople was that the graces of speech could not be cultivated amidst the incursions of barbarians, whilst with much difficulty they earned their daily subsistence by manual labour; “but we preserve”, said he with simplicity of heart, “the faith which our fathers have handed down to us”. The bishops, his legates, say the same thing: “Our countries are harassed by the fury of barbarous nations. We live in the midst of battles, raids and devastations: our lives pass in continual alarms, and we subsist by the labour of our hands.” Pope Agatho himself had died before the council concluded its sessions.

See the Acta Sanctorum for January 10, and especially Duchesne, Liber Pontificalis, vol. i, pp. 350—358 cf. Mann, Lives of the Popes, vol. ii, pp. 23—48.

987 St. Peter Orsini Venetian Admiral Benedictine hermit
 In monastério Cuxanénsi, in Gállia, natális sancti Petri Urséoli Confessóris, qui, antea Venetiárum Dux et deínde Mónachus ex Ordine sancti Benedícti, pietáte et virtútibus cláruit.
       In the monastery of Cusani in France, the birthday of St. Peter Orsini, confessor, previously the Doge of Venice and afterwards monk of the Order of St. Benedict, renowned for piety and miracles.
Also called Peter Orseolo, he was a member of one of the most noble houses of Venice born 928 and, at the age of twenty, became an admiral in the Venetian Navy. After a series of successful campaigns against the Dalmatian pirates, he was elected Doge of Venice in 967, supposedly securing his elevation by poisoning his predecessor Peter Candiani IV, as was charged by St. Peter Damian.

For two years Peter ruled with consummate skill, assisting Venice to weather a series of political crises. Then, without any warning and without informing his family, he disappeared from Venice and secretly entered the Benedictine abbey of Cuxa, in the Spanish Pyrenees. There he devoted himself to a life of severe austerity and asceticism, working as a humble sacrist until St. Romuald suggested that he become a hermit. He lived alone until his death.

987 ST PETER ORSEOLO
THE vocation of St Peter Orseolo (Urseolus) must count among the strangest of those recorded in ecclesiastical history. Born in 928 of a distinguished Venetian family, he seems already at the age of twenty to have been appointed to the command of the fleet of the city of the lagoons, in which office he conducted a successful campaign against the Dalmatian pirates who infested the Adriatic. How far he was personally involved in the popular outbreak of 976, which ended in the violent death of the Doge Peter Candiani IV, and in the destruction by fire of a large part of the city, cannot be clearly determined. The testimony of St Peter Damian, which attributes the responsibility to Orseolo, can only be accepted with reserve.

It was, however, Orseolo who was chosen doge in place of the murdered Candiani, and the best modern authorities pay a high tribute to his energy and tact during his brief administration. “He was”, we are told, “a man of saintly character, but like all his race possessing higher qualities of statesmanship than were to be found in his predecessors in the ducal chair. His first care was to repair the damage wrought by the fire. He began the building of a new palace and church. He renewed the treaty with Istria. But his great service to the state lay in this, that he met and settled, to the nominal satisfaction of Otto II, the claims of the widowed dogaressa Gualdrada. . . . On these terms Gualdrada signed a quittance of all claims against the State of Venice.” The grievances of Gualdrada had created a great political crisis, but this was now safely tided over.

Then an astounding thing happened. On the night of September 1, 978, Peter Orseolo secretly left Venice and took refuge in the Benedictine abbey of Cuxa, in Roussillon on the borders of France and Spain. His wife, to whom he had been married for thirty-two years, and his only son, who was himself destined to become one of the greatest of the Venetian doges, were apparently for a long time in entire ignorance of the place of his retreat. Still, Peter’s apparently sudden resolution may not have been so entirely unpremeditated as it seems. There is early evidence for the belief that he and his wife had lived as brother and sister ever since the birth of their only child, and it has also been suggested that a letter of Ratherius, addressed to him possibly as early as 968, shows that Peter had already entertained the idea of becoming a monk. There is in any case no doubt that at Cuxa Orseolo led for a while a life of the strictest asceticism and self-effacement under the holy Abbot Guarinus; and then, desirous of still greater solitude, he built a hermitage for himself, probably at the urging of St Romuald, whom he met at Cuxa, and who was the great propagator of this particular development of the Benedictine vocation. St Peter died in 987, and many miracles were said to have taken place at his tomb.

See Mabillon, vol. v, pp. 851 seq.; Tolra, Saint Pierre Orseolo (1897); Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xvii (1898), P. 252 BHL., n. 986. And cf. H. F. Brown in the Cambridge Mediaeval History, vol. iv, p. 403 (quoted above).

1209 St. William of Bourges canon monk Cistercian many miracles deaf and dumb, the blind, the mentally ill became sound.
 Bitúricis, in Aquitánia, sancti Willhélmi, Epíscopi et Confessóris, signis et virtútibus clari; quem Honórius Papa Tértius in Sanctórum cánonem adscrípsit.
       At Bourges in Aquitaine, St. William, archbishop and confessor, renowned for miracles and virtues.  He was canonized by Pope Honorius III.

Eudo accordingly, having made his prayer, drew first the name of the abbot William, to whom also the majority of the votes of the clergy had been already given. It was on November 23, 1200. This news overwhelmed William. He never would have acquiesced had he not received a double command in virtue of obedience, on~ from Pope Innocent III, the other from his superior, the Abbot of Citeaux. He left his solitude with tears, and soon after was consecrated.

In this new dignity St William’s first care was to bring both his exterior and interior life up to the highest possible standard, being very sensible that a man’s first task is to honour God in his own soul. He redoubled his austerities, saying it was now incumbent on him to. do penance for others as well as for himself. He always wore a hair-shirt under his religious habit, and never added or diminished anything in his clothing whatever the season of the year; and he never ate any flesh-meat, though he had it at his table for guests. The attention he paid to his flock was no less remarkable, especially in assisting the poor both spiritually and corporally, saying that he was chiefly sent for them. He was most gentle in dealing with penitent sinners, but inflexible towards the impenitent, though he refused to have recourse to the civil power against them, the usual remedy of that age. Many such he at last reclaimed by his sweetness and charity. Certain great men abusing his leniency, usurped the rights of his church; but William strenuously defended them even against the king himself, notwithstanding his threats to confiscate his lands. By humility and patience he overcame, on more than one occasion, the opposition of his chapter and other clergy. He converted many Albigensian heretics, and was preparing for a mission among them at the time he was seized with his last illness. He persisted, nevertheless, in preaching a farewell sermon to his people, which increased his fever to such a degree, that he was obliged to postpone his journey and take to his bed. The night following, perceiving his last hour was at hand, he desired to anticipate the Nocturns, which are said at midnight; but having made the sign of the cross on his lips and breast, he was unable to pronounce more than the first two words. Then, at a sign, which he made, he was laid on ashes, and thus St William died, a little past midnight, on the morning of January lo, 1209. His body was interred in his cathedral, and being honoured by many miracles it was enshrined in 1217, and in the year following he was canonized by Pope Honorius III.

See the Acta Sanctorum for January 10, and the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. iii (1884), pp. 271—361 BHL., nn. 1283—1284.