Amandus of Worms, St.
AMANDUS OF WORMS, ST.
Bishop; fl. 7th century. A royal charter of doubtful authenticity by Dagobert I (d. 639) in 627 supposedly granted certain lands and revenues to the church of Worms, of which Amandus, an apostolic man, was said to be bishop (Monumenta Germaniae Diplomata [Berlin 1826–] 1:139). According to later reports, rupert of salzburg brought the relics of the saint to the monastic church of sankt peter in Salzburg during the 8th century. Subsequently doubts arose whether these relics were those of the holy bishop of Worms or of another amandus, the apostle of Belgium, and only in a 17th-century notice in the Catalogus abbatum S. Petri are the relics clearly identified as those of St. Amandus, the Bishop of Worms. The first reference to a church at Worms in honor of the saint dates from the early 11th century, and the original cult of the bishop kept his feast day October 26.
Feast: Oct. 2.
Bibliography: Acta Santorum, Oct. 11:910–922. g. allmang, Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques, ed. a. baudrillat et al. (Paris 1912–) 2:937–938. h. schmitt, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. j. hofer and k. rahner, 10 v. (2d, new ed. Freiburg 1957–65) 1:417. i. polc, Biblioteca sanctorum (Rome 1961–) 1:924–925. e. zÖllner, Geschichte Österreichs (Munich 1961) 49–50.
[h. dressler]