Feastday: February 28
Death: 460
Abbot of Gallo Roman descent, he adopted the life of a hermit in the Jura Mountains, France, at age thirty five and was joined by his brother, St. Lupicinus, and many other disciples. The two brothers thus found it necessary to establish two monasteries, at Condat and Leuconne, and a convent at La Beaume which was governed by their sister. Romanus was famed for his healing of two lepers at Saint Maurice. He died on February 28 and was buried at La Beaume.
Saint Romanus of Condat (c. 390 – c. 463) is a saint of the fifth century. At the age of thirty five he decided to live as a hermit in the area of Condat. His younger brother Lupicinus followed him there. They became leaders of a community of monks that included Saint Eugendus.
Romanus and Lupicinus founded several monasteries. These included Condat Abbey, which was the nucleus of the later town of Saint-Claude, Jura), Lauconne (later Saint-Lupicin, as Lupicinus was buried there), La Balme (Beaume) (later Saint-Romain-de-Roche), where Romanus was buried, and Romainmôtier (Romanum monasterium) in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland.
Romanus was ordained a priest by St. Hilary of Arles in 444.
Sources on Romanus
Two lives of him are in existence: one by Gregory of Tours in the Liber vitae patrum (Mon. Germ. Hist.: Script. Merov., I, 663), and an anonymous Vita Sanctorum Romani, Lupicini, Eugendi [ibid., III, 131 sqq.; cf. Benoît, "Histoire de St-Claude", I (Paris, 1890); Besson, "Recherches sur les origines des évêchés de Genève, Lausanne, et Sion" (Fribourg, 1906), 210 sqq.].
