[MR] Wikipedia: Saint Expeditus of Melitene

[Garth Groff and Sally Sanford]

Noble Friends,

Lately I've been thinking of commenting on some interesting, but obscure
saints. Saint Expeditus of Melitene has long been at the top of my list.
Sadly, I just missed his feast day, which was celebrated on 19 April. I'm
late, and ironically, among his other portfolios is prevention of
procrastination.

According to legend, Expeditus was a Roman army courier or despatch rider.
He converted to Christianity, and was martyred along with five other
soldiers around 303 at Melitene in Turkey during the Diocletianic
persecutions.

Historical existence of the saint is somewhat problematic, and there are
post-medieval stories of otherwise unidentified statues of Roman soldiers
being sent to churches in boxes marked "*expédit" *(expedite in French),
both in France and in Louisiana. I wasn't able to locate an actual church
in the US that is dedicated in name to Saint Expeditus (I'm sure there must
be at least one or two). Saint Expeditus has a major shrine in the Our Lady
of Guadalupe Chapel in New Orleans, one of those places which supposedly
received an unmarked statue. There is also an outdoor shrine in Wexford,
Pennsylvania.

In any case, in the middle ages Saint Expeditus was venerated in Turin,
Italy. Today he is a popular saint in many countries, especially Brazil and
Chile.

Wikipedia has a somewhat chaotic discussion of Saint Expeditus at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expeditus .

Another source is an online A to Z list of saints:
https://catholicsaints.info/saint-expeditus-of-melitene .

Saint Expeditus is the patron of the Republic of Molossia, but that
"country" is a not-too-serious micronation located in Dayton, Nevada. See:
http://www.molossia.org/stexpeditus.html .

Yours Aye,


Mungo Napier, Laird of Mallard Lodge  🦆