Saint Nicodemus of Mammola

Saint Nicodemus of Mammola Also known as

Nicodemus of Cirò
Nicodemus of Cellerano
Nicodemus of Kellerano
Nicodemo of…

25 March (Roman Martyrology)
12 March (Mammola, Italy and surrounding area)
Sunday after 12 May (founding of the Monte Cellerano monastic community)
1st Sunday in September (translation of relics in 1501)

Profile

Son of Theophanes and Pandia. Educated by a local priest, Father Galatone, known for his learning and piety. Even as a young man, Nicodemus was disgusted by the mis-spent lives of his contemporaries, and was drawn to the monastic life. He tried to join the monks in the San Mercurius abbey on Mount Pollino in the Calabria region of Italy; it was a hard, ascetic life for these monks, dressed in goat skins, going bare-foot in all seasons, surviving on chestnuts and lupins with a cave for shelter and some straw for a bed, and Nicodemus was initially turned away by the abbot, Saint Fantinus, who thought the young man’s health too frail for a monk‘s life. But Nicodemus persevered, and Fantinus eventually relented and welcomed him to the community. Brother monk with Saint Nilus of Rossano.

Feeling the need for greater solitude, Nicodemus withdrew to live as a hermit on Monte Cellerano in Locri, Italy. His reputation for wisdom and piety followed him, though, and he soon attracted several spiritual students, and organized them in to a colony that lived separately but met once a week. However, his community became too well known; there were too many would be students, too many lay visitors, and too many incursions by Saracen invaders. The monks dispersed to various monasteries. Nicodemus moved first to a house in Gerace, Italy, and then to a monastery near Mammola, Italy where he spent the rest of his life. His reputation for holiness was such that, upon his death, the monastery was renamed San Nicodemo in his honour.

Born

early-10th century in Cirò, Catanzaro, Italy

Died

25 March 990 in the monastery at Mammola, Calabria, Italy (a house then renamed San Nicodemo) of natural causes
interred in a tomb in a small oratory at the monastery
oratory re-built into a large church by Normans in 1080
relics transferred to the church of Mammola in 1580
his chapel was re-built and decorated in the city of Mammola in 1884
relics surveyed and re-enshrined on 12 May 1922