Evasio

Who they were

According to one tradition, Saint Evasius was the first bishop of Asti, consecrated around the year 330, who dedicated the city's main temple - formerly given to the goddess Minerva - to the true God and brought monks into the city to root out paganism. He failed, however, to convert the powerful local Arian faction, who forced him to take refuge with his companions Proiectus and Malianus in the Selva Cornea near Casale; around 362 the city prefect had them arrested and beheaded along with a hundred and forty-five other faithful.

A later, fanciful ninth-century account instead makes Evasius a bishop of Casale martyred in the eighth century, under Liutprand, and Casale itself came to be named Casale Sant'Evasio in his honour. His feast is kept on 1 December, the date entered in the Roman Martyrology and still observed at Asti; he remains patron of Casale Monferrato.

The miracles

There was never a formal cause: he has been honoured as a saint since before the Church's formal processes began.

Why that counted as sanctity

Bishop and martyr venerated as patron of Casale Monferrato, in a legend told with two conflicting dates; feast 1 December.