Saint Donatus of Arezzo

The 1907 Catholic Encyclopedia says Arezzo became a bishopric about 304 under Saint Satyrus, and that "St. Donatus, his successor, is patron of the cathedral of St. Peter the Apostle." ² It adds that the first eight bishops of the city were all saints. ² The Roman Martyrology calls Donatus the second bishop of the see. ¹ Catholic Culture says the same: "His name occurs second on the list of the bishops of the See of Arezzo." ³

That is close to all that can be stated plainly. The Martyrology's entry for August 7 is short and careful: at Arezzo, Saint Donatus, bishop, the second of this see, whose virtue and power in prayer Pope Saint Gregory the Great praised. ¹

The oldest witness is a single sentence. In the first book of his Dialogues, Gregory the Great tells of Nonnosus, a monk of Mount Soracte, who dropped and shattered a glass lamp, gathered the pieces before the altar, prayed, and found it whole. In this, Gregory says, he imitated "two notable fathers, to wit, Gregory and Donatus; the first of which removed a mountain, and the other made a broken chalice safe and sound." ⁵

Gregory does not say more, and he does not name Arezzo in that sentence. Benedict XVI, preaching at Arezzo in 2012, did: "The chalice was broken and then pieced back together by St Donatus, of whom Gregory the Great speaks." ⁴ He went on to call it "the image of a work of peace carried out by the Church within society, for the common good." ⁴

Later centuries filled in the rest. Catholic Culture, excerpting the Brighton Oratory, tells the legend. Donatus came with his family from Nicomedia in the East and was educated by a priest named Pigmenius, and as a boy he had as a classmate the future emperor Julian the Apostate. ³ Made bishop of Arezzo, he preached and worked miracles: he raised a woman named Euphrosina from the dead, defeated a dragon that had fouled a well, gave sight to a blind woman named Syriana, and drove a demon out of Asterius, the son of the prefect of Arezzo. ³

The chalice belongs to this story too. Pagans attacked the church while he was celebrating the liturgy and shattered the chalice; after intense prayer the saint gathered the pieces together, none of the Precious Blood was spilled, and seventy-nine pagans were converted. ³ A month later, the legend goes on, the prefect Quadratian arrested a monk named Hilarian and the bishop. Hilarian was martyred on July 16, and Donatus was beheaded on August 7. ³

Arezzo's own church reads the legend as a pastoral image rather than a chronicle. Archbishop Riccardo Fontana, writing before Benedict XVI's visit, said the diocese has for centuries tried to open the eyes of those who do not see, as Donatus did for the blind Siranna, and that the broken chalice for which their patron is remembered expresses the ministry of restoring unity amid real divisions. ⁷

The sources differ on how he died. Catholic Culture calls him a bishop and martyr who "suffered martyrdom under Emperor Julian the Apostate, in 361," and its legend, which places Julian's edict on February 4, 362 and Hilarian's martyrdom in 362, has Donatus beheaded on August 7 of the same year; its heading gives his death as 362. ³ John Paul II, speaking to pilgrims from the diocese in 1994, entrusted them to "San Donato Vescovo e martire." ⁶

The current Roman Martyrology is more reserved. Its entry for August 7 calls him bishop, cites Gregory the Great, and says nothing of martyrdom. ¹ The difference is between the legend, which the diocese and older devotion have kept, and what the Church's official catalog of saints is now willing to state. ¹³⁶

Whatever the details, Arezzo has never let go of him. The encyclopedia says that "St. Donatus, the patron of Arezzo, is also buried in the cathedral." ² Benedict XVI called him "your Patron," a "fearless evangelist" who as bishop "led his people back to unity through prayer and the Eucharist." ⁴ John Paul II named him first among the diocese's patrons, with Saint Margaret of Cortona and Saint John the Evangelist. ⁶ Archbishop Fontana wrote that Donatus is venerated in 256 particular churches around the world. ⁷

Saint Donatus is the patron saint of Arezzo and of its cathedral. ²⁴⁶ Catholic Culture also lists the town of Bautzen in Germany, and refers readers elsewhere for a list of places in Italy. ³ He is shown as a bishop with a chalice, a crozier or a sword, often with a dragon rising from a well, or kneeling at an altar with an angel beside him. ³

Saint Donatus of Arezzo's feast day is August 7. ¹³ The Roman Martyrology enters him on that day, and Catholic Culture lists him among its commemorations for August 7, with the legend's date of his beheading. ¹³

There is very little firm ground under Donatus. A place in a list of bishops, a grave in a cathedral, and one sentence of Gregory the Great are what history offers. ¹²⁵ The dragon, the classmate emperor and the seventy-nine converts belong to the legend, and the page has told them as such. ³

What lasted is the chalice. Gregory remembered it as the work of a holy man; Benedict XVI read it as the Church's work of peace in society; the Diocese of Arezzo reads it as the ministry of gathering up what has been broken and making it one again. ⁴⁵⁷ Benedict tied it to the Eucharist itself, through which, he said, Donatus led his people back to unity. ⁴

A broken cup put back together is an odd emblem for a patron saint. It does not pretend the breaking did not happen. It says only that the pieces were gathered, prayed over and made usable again, which is what a city asks of its bishop and what Arezzo still asks of Donatus. ⁴⁷