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The saints

St Ambrose

The governor came to keep order at an election. The crowd elected him.

Feast: 7 December · about 340 to 397 · Milan, Italy

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The atrium of the Basilica of Sant’Ambrogio in Milan: a Romanesque brick courtyard with arcades and two bell towers.

Óðinn, 2015. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.5 ca.

Home / The saints / St Ambrose

The basilica of Milan, 374

The clergy and people of Milan are bitterly divided over who will be their bishop.1

The consular governor of the province, a young lawyer named Ambrose, comes to the basilica and begins a speech appealing for peace and moderation.1

A voice, which Paulinus says was the voice of a child, cries out: “Ambrose, Bishop”.1

The whole assembly took up the cry. He was not even baptized yet.

01St Ambrose

Bishop and teacher

Ambrose was still only a catechumen, and by the canons ineligible to be a bishop.1

His power as an orator is attested by the conversion of the skilled rhetorician Augustine.1

02St Ambrose

The emperor’s penance

When the Emperor Theodosius was guilty of a massacre, Ambrose wrote to him in his own hand urging repentance, and the emperor did public penance.1

The atrium of the Basilica of Sant’Ambrogio in Milan: a Romanesque brick courtyard with arcades and two bell towers.
The atrium of Sant’Ambrogio in Milan, the basilica that bears his name. Óðinn, 2015. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.5 ca.

An emperor knelt because a bishop told him the truth. That had not happened before.

Notes

  1. Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), “St. Ambrose”. New Advent edition. newadvent.org

The Catholic Encyclopedia (1913) is in the public domain; we quote the New Advent edition. Texts of the Holy See are quoted briefly from vatican.va. Scripture: Douay-Rheims, Challoner revision (public domain). Photographs: Wikimedia Commons, credited under each image; full list on the photo credits page.

Lines in the narrator’s voice, without a note, are our reflection, not a historical claim. Stone & Incense restates Church teaching in plain words; our wording is not an official Church text. Report an error.