The Feast day of St. Maurice is celebrated on September 22. He is the patron saint of armies, soldiers and the Swiss Guard.
St. Maurice died as a Martyr of the Faith in the year 286 near Geneva. He was a Christian soldier, who along with his comrades was executed for refusing to fight against his Christian brothers. Their story was recorded in the Passio martyrum Acaunensium (“The Passion of the Martyrs of Agaunum”), by the 5th-century French bishop St. Eucherius. He believed the Theban Legion was a group of Egyptian Christians serving in the Roman army under the command of Maurice.
Maurice was an officer of the Theban Legion of Emperor Maximian Herculius’ army, which was composed of Christians from Upper Egypt. He and his fellow legionnaires refused to sacrifice to the gods as ordered by the Emperor to insure victory over rebelling Bagaudae.
The Roman Emperor Maximian sent the soldiers to end a revolt of Christian peasants in Gaul The group met with Maximian, but they refused to fight against their brethren and withdrew in protest. To punish them, Maximian had ten of them executed and eventually the entire contingent of solders were slaughtered on a spot about two miles from the village and their bodies buried by locals.
It is believed that as many as six thousand Legionnaires were put to death.Their story was told by St. Eucherius, who became Bishop of Lyons about 434,
The cult of St. Maurice is found in Switzerland, near the Rhine , and in northern Italy. St. Maurice’s relics are preserved at the Abbey of St. Maurice at Brzeg, Pol, and at Turin, Italy.
“We are your soldiers, oh Emperor, but above all, we are God’s servants. We owe military obedience to you, but to him, we owe our innocence.”
Quote of St. Maurice
September is the Month of Our Lady of Sorrows