Potentinus

Who they were

According to a legendary Life written in the 9th century, Potentinus came from Aquitaine together with his sons Simplicius and Felicius. After making a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, they travelled home by way of Trier, where Bishop Maximinus sent them on to Karden on the Moselle, the place where the priest Saint Castor had lived as a hermit. There the father and his two sons lived in prayer and solitude until their deaths.

Little else is known of them. Their relics were kept at Karden until about 930, when they were moved to Steinfeld in the Eifel, where Potentinus was chosen as patron; the translation of the relics was commemorated on 3 June. On 12 August 1908 Pope Pius X confirmed the immemorial veneration of the diocese of Cologne for the saints Potentinus, Felicius and Simplicius, father and sons, pilgrims and hermits, and fixed their feast on 18 June.

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

Pilgrim-hermit from Aquitaine; father of Simplicius and Felicius, venerated at Karden and later at Steinfeld; feast 18 June.