Oderisius, Bl.

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ODERISIUS, BL.

Abbot and cardinal; d. Dec. 2, 1104. He was descended from the family of the counts of Marsi, educated at the Abbey of monte cassino under Abbot Richer (d.1055), and created cardinal in 1059. He served as prior of Monte Cassino under Abbot Desiderius, later Pope victor iii, and succeeded him as abbot in 1087. Oderisius governed Monte Cassino in the same spirit as his predecessor and completed the great buildings that Desiderius had begun. He became involved in Byzantine-German politics, but apparently without prejudice to his primary loyalty to the apostolic see. An author himself, Oderisius was a friend of scholarship and encouraged leo marsicanus to begin his chronicle.

Feast: Dec. 2.

Bibliography: Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores 7:912. l. tosti, Storia della badia di Monte-Cassino, 3 v. (Rome 184243) 2:423. a. m. zimmermann, Kalendarium Benedictinum: Die Heiligen und Seligen des Benediktinerorderns und seiner Zweige (Metten 193338) 3:384385. a. m. zimmermann, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche (Freiburg 195765) 7:109596.

[b. d. hill]