SAINT POPE CORNELIUS I

About Saint Pope Cornelius I

Some of his relics were taken to Germany during the Middle Ages; his head was claimed by Kornelimünster Abbey near Aachen.[11] In the Rhineland, he was also a patron saint of lovers. A legend associated with Cornelius tells of a young artist who was commissioned to decorate the Corneliuskapelle in the Selikum quarter of Neuss. The daughter of a local townsman fell in love with the artist, but her father forbade the marriage, remarking that he would only consent if the pope did as well. Miraculously, the statue of Cornelius leaned forward from the altar and blessed the pair, and the two lovers were thus married.

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Cornelius, along with Quirinus of Neuss, Hubertus and Anthony the Great, was venerated as one of the Four Holy Marshals in the Rhineland during the late Middle Ages.

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A legend told at Carnac states that its stones were once pagan soldiers who had been turned into stone by Cornelius, who was fleeing from them.

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The Catholic Church commemorated Cornelius by venerating him, with his Saint’s Day on the 16th of September, which he shares with his good friend St. Cyprian.[18] His Saint’s Day was originally on the 14th of September, the date on which both St. Cyprian and St. Cornelius were martyred, as proposed by St. Jerome. St. Cornelius’s saintly name means “battle horn”, and he is represented in icons by a pope either holding some form of cow’s horn or with a cow nearby.[11] He is the patron against earache, epilepsy, fever, twitching, and also of cattle, domestic animals, earache sufferers, epileptics, and the town of Kornelimünster, Germany where his head is located.

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