Élophe saint
Élophe or Éliphe , more rarely Alophe , (in Latin Eliphius ) is an obscure Lorraine saint , éponyme of the village of Saint-Élophe where it would have been buried, after having undergone martyrdom.
Its worship seems old. The Roman Martyrologe mentions it at dated October 16th, locates it at Cologne and in fact a victim of Julien the Apostate.
To the the Middle Ages, Julien passed to Lorraine for the large persecutor of the local martyrs. However neither persecutions of Julien nor those of Dioclétien (to which other texts return) touched de Gaulle Christendoms. If Élophe really knew, for old date, a death comparable to martyrdom, it is necessary to see in him a victim of the franques attacks in the Rhineland, unless it was not assassinated by unspecified brigands.
Élophe appears clearly only at the time of one translation in the year 964. To this date, the bishop of Toul, Gerard, gives most of his relics to Brunon, archbishop of Cologne, which deposits them with the collegial Saint Martin's day of this city. A certain worship of the saint appears to be organized there and it is from there that undoubtedly the error comes from localization in martyrologe.
An anonymous passion was written at the 11th century, most probably by a clerk of the diocese of Toul. About 1130, it is taken again and amplified by Rupert de Deutz.
It is the hagiographal anonymity which places martyrdom under the Julien emperor, from Italy, says us it, purposely to restore the worship of the idols as a Gaulle. With the country of the Leuques, he learns the existence from a Christian family of great reputation: Élophe, his/her brother Euchaire and their three sisters: Carries out, Libaire and Suzanne. A little later the Vie holy Menne will add two sisters moreover: Ode and Gondrude - and the name of their parents will deliver to us: Baccius and Litrude.
Julien starts by making imprison Christians (of which Élophe) which miraculeusement is miraculeusement delivered. Élophe goes to Toul to attend dead his/her old mother and to bury it, then returns to Grand where he preaches the catholic faith, by simultaneously attacking the pagan ones and the Jews. The latter will complain in Julien who stops the saint on the edges of the Vair, makes him undergo a interrogation and the nap to sacrifice to the idols. On its stubborn refusal and after long discussions, he condemns it to be decapitated. The torment would have taken place with Soulosse (old the Solimariaca of the Itinéraire of Antonin) and the place is still marked by it today by a vault with the evocative name of “Holy-Épéotte”.
The history is completed in Céphalophorie: Élophe collects its head and carries at the top of the hill which since took its name. He assied on a stone which grows hollow to form a seat to him and, according to a version even later of the legend, his cut head pronounces a last sermon. He is finally buried there and a vault - future parish church - is high on its tomb. It is there that apparently Gerard comes to seek at the 10th century the remainders of the martyr to transfer them to Cologne.
The reasons of this translation escape to us. Any political reason is perhaps not absent, Brunon - whose Gerard was a close relation - appearing to have had the intention systematically reinforcing the bonds between the Churches lotharingiennes and the Empire. Élophe saint, to follow his hagiographal, is not less closely related on the diocese of Toul and, more precisely still, to the area of Neufchâteau. It is there that all the local saints group whom it brought together in only one family. Saint Euchaire is honoured with Liverdun, holy Libaire with Grand, holy Menne to Poussay, Gondrude sponsors the church of Hagnéville and Ode that of Saint-Ouen-the-Parey, both being honoured with their sister by the chapter with Poussay. The exception could be Suzanne, dead in Champagne; but the hagiographal anonymity associates it with Memmie, bishop of Châlons and very venerated saint who had a worship with Saint-Menge, a close village whose name is only one alternative of Memmie.
As it gathers in space, the family of Élophe gathers in devoted time: all have their festival in October, except Ode which one had memory on February 16th. Even the céphalophorie was contagious: Euchaire and Libaire, both dead decapitated, have, like Élophe, carried their head until the places which they had chosen for burial.
As the Benedictines of Paris notice it, one would need a thorough knowledge of the communities of clerks of this area for to include/understand where and under which conditions this cycle of legends was constituted. The topic of the céphalophorie, widespread in all North-East of France, could be inspired of the legends of holy Denis, the large royal abbey being largely possessionnée in these areas.
In Saint-Élophe even, the martyr was the object of a pilgrimage still very attended at the 19th century. The site was ransacked at least twice: in 1587 by the Protestants, in 1633 by the Swedes, but each time the relics would have been preserved. The church always has an ancient fleshfly supposed being its tomb and a venerated statuette which goes back to the 16th century. We already announced, in the valley, the vault of Holy-Épéotte (or Épéiotte), which one had tardily made a maidservant of Éloffe, but whose name points out only the sword of martyrdom, as the old scholars already recognized it. Between these two extreme points, one could find the traces of martyrdom while following his rise on the plate: a rock which would have opened in front of him to offer to him a shelter and a place of rest during its walk, a source which it would have made spout out to wash its head there… One went to Saint-Éloffe to cure fever, but especially from the drop and gravel.
Several churches and vaults are dedicated to Élophe in the dioceses of Toul and Trier. The church Saint Nicolas's Day de Neufchâteau claimed to hold relics. Beyond, its worship is little répandu.
With Rampillon (Seine-et-Marne), the church built by the Hospital ones at the 13th century is dedicated to him and a beautiful statue which occupies the pier of the gate represents it, young man with the looked after beard, out of dress of deacon. We do not know how it arrived in this area of Brie.
A statue of our saint - a wood dating from the 16th century - was in the Saint-Denis church of Largny-on-Fall (Aisne). It unfortunately was stolen in 1965 and one does not have of it photography.
In the diocese of Chartres, it gave its name to the village of Saint-Éliph, in the canton of the Magnifying glass. One sees a statue céphalophore there 17th century, in painted and gilded stucco, of popular invoice, integrated in the high altar baroque. The church very close to Vaupillon was formerly dedicated to him. There still, no old document says to us how this Lorraine martyr could be honoured with the borders with the Comté of the Pole.
It is necessary nevertheless, in this case, to make state of an interesting assumption well that fragile. One finds in the old episcopal lists of Chartres a series of bishops, locally not documented, but bearing names of bishops of the areas of the Meuse (Verdun) and the Moselle (Trier). It was often thought that it could be a question of exiled which, in front of the franque projection in the Rhineland, would have been folded up in the Paris basin and one or the other could have occupied the head office of Chartres. These old relations between the Churches, if they were proven, could explain the rather incomprehensible presence in this diocese of a Élophe saint who, for the blow, could be well a clerk killed in the disorder of the invasions and whose memory would have been brought by these emigrants.