Feast day: May 4
St. Florian
A Roman army officer in what is now Austria who openly confessed his faith during Diocletian's persecution and was drowned in the river Enns with a stone around his neck.
Florian was an officer in the Roman army stationed in the province of Noricum, in what is now Austria, in the early fourth century. A Christian, he held a senior administrative and military post around the town of Lauriacum at the time of the Emperor Diocletian's great persecution.
When the persecution reached his province and Christians were being arrested, Florian — according to his ancient acts — did not hide but openly went to encourage the imprisoned believers and to declare himself a Christian before the governor, Aquilinus. He refused every command to offer sacrifice to the Roman gods.
He was scourged and finally condemned to death by drowning: a stone was tied around his neck and he was thrown from a bridge into the river Enns, about the year 304. His body, recovered and buried by a pious woman, became the centre of a great shrine, around which the abbey of St. Florian later grew.
Because of the manner of his death by water — and a legend that as a soldier he had once miraculously quenched a great fire with a single bucket — Florian became one of the most popular patrons of central Europe: invoked against fire and flood, and especially as the patron of firefighters.
By tradition he once saved a town from fire, and is invoked against fire and flood — the patron of firefighters across Europe to this day.
Image: Francesco del Cossa (Public domain), via Wikimedia Commons.
Source: newadvent.org/cathen/09273a.htm
Get a story like this every Sunday.