Roch

Infobox Saint
name=Saint Roch
birth_date=c. 1295 est.
death_date=1327
feast_day=August 16
venerated_in=


imagesize=266px
caption=Saint Roch
birth_place=Montpellier, France
death_place=
titles=Pilgram
beatified_date=
beatified_place=
beatified_by=
canonized_date=
canonized_place=
canonized_by=
attributes=Wound of thigh, dog offering bread
patronage=Invoked against cholera, epidemics, knee problems, plague, skin diseases; bachelors, diseased cattle, dogs, falsely accused people, invalids, surgeons, tile-makers [ [http://saints.sqpn.com/saintr06.htm Patron Saints Index: Saint Roch ] ] ; gravediggers, second-hand dealers, pilgrims
major_shrine=
suppressed_date=
issues=

Saint Roch (Latin: Rochus; Catalan: Roc; Italian: Rocco; French: Roch; Spanish and Portuguese: Roque; German: Rochus; c. 1295 – traditionally 16 August 1327 [The date was offered by Francesco Diedo, "Vita Sancti Rochi" 1478.] ) was a Christian saint, a confessor whose death is commemorated on 16 August; he is specially invoked against the plague.

The historical truth about Saint Roch

According to the searches of the Belgian historian Pierre Bolle [Bolle, "Saint Roch. Genèse et première expansion d’une culte au XVeme siècle" 2001.] (2001), that represent today the most exhaustive work on ancient lives of the saint, Saint Roch is not properly a historical saint. The work of Bolle by using a rigorous historical methodology, has cleared which of the hagiographies were the most ancient, and which were instead simple reworks and additions. According to Pierre Bolle, Saint Roch is a hagiographical doublet of a more ancient saint, Saint Racho of Autun (died ca. 660). Invoked against the storms, the figure of Raco would be to the base of the name of our saint (Raco/Roch), and of the patronage of the saint who recovers from the plague, patronage that would have been generated for aphaeresis, i.e. the fall of the first syllable of one the word, from the French name “tempeste” (storm). From “Racho” invoked to protect from “tem-peste”, to “Roch” protecting from “-peste” (plague) the step was short, and supported by the theories of medieval medicine, that attributed the causes of illness to the corruption of air and to the consequent breaking of the equilibrium inside the human body. The thesis of Bolle has completely revolutionized the studies on the saint, even if in hagiographic field the existence of doublets and homonyms to the base of the creation of new saints is a well known procedure, like in the cases of the saints Vincent of Agen and Alban of Namur.

Biography

According to his "Acta" and his "vita" in "Legenda Aurea", he was born at Montpellier, at that time "upon the border of France" as "Legenda Aurea" has it, [An estimated date, about 1295, has been interpolated.] , the son of the noble governor of that city. Even his birth was accounted a miracle, for his noble mother had been barren until she prayed to the Virgin Mary. Miraculously marked from birth with a red cross on his breast that grew as he did, he early began to manifest strict asceticism and great devoutness; on days when his "devout mother fasted twice in the week, and the blessed child Rocke abstained him twice also, when his mother fasted in the week, and would suck his mother but once that day". ["Legenda Aurea", William Caxton's translation, 1483.]

On the death of his parents in his twentieth year he distributed all his worldly goods among the poor like Francis of Assisi— though his father on his deathbed had ordained him governor of Montpellier— and set out as a mendicant pilgrim for Rome [He is conventionally portrayed with pilgrim's wide-brimmed hat, staff and purse.] . Coming into Italy during an epidemic of plague, he was very diligent in tending the sick in the public hospitals at Acquapendente, Cesena Rimini, Novara ["There is little concern for mapping a logical itinerary" remarks Louise Marshall, "Manipulating the Sacred: Image and Plague in Renaissance Italy" "Renaissance Quarterly" 47.3 (Autumn, 1994:485-532) p. 502 note 39.] and Rome, and is said to have effected many miraculous cures by prayer and the sign of the cross and the touch of his hand. At Rome he preserved the "cardinal of Angleria in Lombardy" [Perhaps Angera was intended.] by making the mark of the cross on his forehead, which miraculously remained ("Legenda Aurea"). Ministering at Piacenza he himself finally fell ill. He was expelled from the town; and withdrew into the forest, where he made himself a hut of boughs and leaves, which was miraculously supplied with water by a spring that arose in the place; he would have perished had not a dog belonging to a nobleman named Gothard supplied him with bread. The lord Gothard, following his hunting dog that carried the bread, discovered Saint Roch and became his acolyte.

On his return incognito to Montpellier he was arrested as a spy (by orders of his own uncle) and thrown into prison, where he languished five years and died on 16 August, 1327, without revealing his name, to avoid worldly glory.After his death, according to "Legenda Aurea,"

:"anon an angel brought from heaven a table divinely written with letters of gold into the prison, which he laid under the head of S. Rocke. And in that table was written that God had granted to him his prayer, that is to wit, that who that calleth meekly to S. Rocke he shall not be hurt with any hurt of pestilence."

The townspeople recognized him as well by his birthmark; [Recognition by a birthmark— "the fairy sign-manual" as Nathaniel Hawthorne called it in "The Birthmark"— is a literary trope drawn from universal, sub-literary folktale morphology, given the designation H51.1 in Stith Thompson, "Motif-Index of Folk-Literature" (Indiana University Press) 1955-58; the birthmark recognition has figured in Romance and marvel literature since Odysseus was recognized by his scar, long before the Hellenistic period; the birthmark-recognition motif can equally be found in Chinese and Mongolian narratives.] he was soon canonized in the popular mind, [The Roman Church did not officially canonize Roch until the seventeenth century. Marie Schmitz-Eichhoff, "St. Rochus: ikonographische und medizinisch-historische Studien", "Kölner medizin-historische Beiträge" 3 (1977), noted in Christine M. Boeckl, "Giorgio Vasari's 'San Rocco Altarpiece': Tradition and Innovation in Plague Iconography" "Artibus et Historiae" 22 No. 43 (2001:29-40) p 39 note 13.] and a great church erected in veneration.

The date (1327) asserted by Francesco Diedo for Saint Roch's death would precede the traumatic advent of the Black Death in Europe (1347-49) after long centuries of absence, for which a rich iconography of the plague, its victims and its protective saints was soon developed, in which the iconography of Roche finds its historical place: previously the "topos" did not exist. [Boeckl 2001:35.]

The first literary account is an undated "Acta" that is labeled, by comparison with the longer, elaborated accounts that were to follow, "Acta Breviora", which relies almost entirely on standardized hagiographic "topoi" to celebrate and promote the cult of Roch [Very fully demonstrated by Irene Vaslef, in a dissertation noted by Marshall 1994:502 and note, 503.]

The story that when the Council of Constance was threatened with plague in 1416, public processions and prayers for the intercession of Roch were ordered, and the outbreak ceased, is provided by Francesco Diedo, the Venetian governor of Brescia, in his "Vita Sancti Rochi", 1478; the first documented cult of Roch dates to the 1460s and gained momentum during the bubonic plague that passed through northern Italy in 1477-79. [The earliest testimony is Roch's appearance in two altarpieces from the Vivarini Venetian workshops in 1464 and 1465. (Marshall 1994:503 note 41, 504 and note 45).]

His popular cult, originally in central and northern Italy and at Montpellier, spread through Spain, France, the Low Countries, and Germany, where he was often interpolated into the roster of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, whose veneration spread in the wake of the Black Death. The magnificent 16th-century Scuola Grande di San Rocco and the adjacent church were dedicated to him by a confraternity at Venice, where his body was said to have been surreptitiously translated and was triumphantly inaugurated in 1485 [Marshall 1994:505.] ; the "Scuola Grande" is famous for its sequence of paintings by Tintoretto, who painted St Roch in glory in a ceiling canvas (1564).

Saint Roch had not been officially recognized as yet, however. In 1590 the Venetian ambassador at Rome reported back to the Serenissima that he had been repeatedly urged to present the witnesses and documentation of the life and miracles of San Rocco, already deeply entrenched in Venetian life, because Pope Sixtus V "is strong in his opinion either to canonize him or else to remove him from the ranks of the saints"; the ambassador had warned a cardinal of the general scandal that would result if the widely-venerated San Rocco were impugned as an imposter. Sixtus did not pursue the matter but left it to later popes to proceed with the canonization process. [Marshall 1994:503 note 43. Also Peter Burke, “How To Be a Counter-Reformation Saint,” in "Religion and Society in Early Modern Europe, 1500-1800", ed. Kaspar von Greyerz (London: Allen & Unwin, 1984), p. 47.] In fact no pope ever acted on this.

Numerous brotherhoods have been instituted in his honour. He is usually represented in the garb of a pilgrim, often lifting his tunic to demonstrate the plague sore in his thigh, and accompanied by a dog carrying a loaf in its mouth.

San Rocco joined San Gerardo as a patron saint of the city of Potenza, Italy.

aint Roch churches

Europe

*San Roque (Cádiz), town in Andalucia, Spain, named after Saint Roch
*Saint-Roch, Paris, Rue St.-Honoré: the largest Late Baroque church in Paris
*St. Roch's Church in Glasgow, Scotland
*Chiesa della Scuola Grande di San Rocco in Venice, Italy
*Eglise (Paroisse-Sanctuaire) de St. Roch in Montpellier, France
*St. Rochus Chapel in Bingen am Rhein, Germany
*Chiesa di San Rocco in Miasino (Novara), Italy
*Chiesa di San Rocco in Scilla, Italy
*Chiesa di San Rocco in Cles, Italy
*Igreja de São Roque in Lisbon, Portugal
*St. Roch Church in Białystok, Poland
*San Rocco, church in Rome
*Sveti Rok, church in Brežice, Slovenia
*Sveti Roko, church (not in use) Dubrovnik, Croatia
*San Rocco in Sora, (FR), Italy
*Sint-Rochus Kerk in Halle, Belgium
*Rochuskirche in the Düsseldorf-Pempelfort district of Düsseldorf [http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochuskirche_%28D%C3%BCsseldorf%29]
*Rochuskirche in the Landstraße district of Vienna [http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochuskirche_%28Wien%29]
*St. Roch Church in Minsk, Belarus
*San Roque de Manila Parish in Manila, Philippines
*Chiesa di San Rocco, Venice, Italy

North America

*St. Roch's Catholic Church Toronto, Ontario
*St. Roch Church in St. Louis, Missouri
*St. Roch's Church in Staten Island, New York
*St. Rocco's Church in Johnston, Rhode Island
*St. Rocco's Church in Dunmore, Pennsylvania
*St. Rocco's Church in Glen Cove, New York
*St. Roch Church in Indianapolis, Indiana
*St. Roch Church in Mentz, Texas
*St Roch Church In Flat Rock, Michigan
*San Rocco Oratory in Chicago Heights, Illinois
*St. Rocco's Church in Cleveland, Ohio
*St Roch Church, Oxford, Massachusetts
*San Roque Church in Santa Barbara, California
*St Roch Church, Quebec City, Canada
*Campo Santo and St. Roch Chapel in New Orleans, Louisiana
*St. Rocco's Church in Pittston, Pennsylvania
*St. Roch Church in the Chickahominy section of Greenwich, Connecticut.
*St. Rochus Croatian Catholic Church in Johnstown, Pennsylvania
*St. Roch's Catholic Church in Kahuku, Hawaii

outh America

*Iglesia de San Roque in Tarija, Bolivia
*Igreja de São Roque em São Roque (Sao Roque Town), Estado de São Paulo (Sao Paolo State) Brazil

Asia and Australasia

*Saint Roch Catholic Church in Kahuku Hawaii
*St. Roch's Church in Glen Iris, Melbourne, Australia
*San Roque Church in JP Rizal St., San Roque, Marikina City, Philippines.
*San Roque Parish Church of Navotas (Metro Manila, Philippines)
*San Roque Cathedral, Diocese of Caloocan (Metro Manila, Philippines)
* San Roque Church of Mandaluyong City (Metro Manila, Philippines)
* San Roque de Manila Parish in Rizal Avenue, Sta.Cruz , Manila (Philippines)
* Gumayu'us San Roque in San Roque village, Saipan, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands
* St. Roch's Church in Puthukudyiruppu, Nagercoil,Tamil Nadu, India
* St. Roque's Chapel,Bandora,Ponda,Goa,India. C/o. St.Anne's Church, Under O.F.M. Franciscan Friars,Ponda,Goa 403401,India.
* St. Roch Church in Nadu Aarupuzhi, Tirunelveli, Tamilnadu, India

Middle East

*San Roch Church in Rayfoun, Lebanon

Other things named after St Roch

*São Roque (disambiguation), a list of Portuguese towns named after Saint Roch
*St. Roch Avenue in the Gentilly neighboorhood of New Orleans, LA
*Sveti Rok Tunnel (Croatian "Tunel Sveti Rok") in Lika, Croatia on the A1 Motorway
* [http://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=en&q=Chemin+St-Roch,+Terrebonne,+Les+Moulins,+Quebec,+Canada&ie=UTF8&oi=georefine&ct=clnk&cd=2&geocode=FeBZuQIdChCa-w] Chemin St-Roch (Road) in the city of Terrebonne, province of Quebec, Canada
* [http://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=en&tab=wl&q=Chemin%20St%20Roch%2C%20Saint-Paul%20de%20Vence%2C%20France] Chemin St-Roch (Road) in the city of Saint-Paul de Vence, province of Alpes-Maritimes, France
* [http://maps.google.ca/maps?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&q=Chemin%20St%20Roch%2C%20Hamme%20Mille%2C%20Belgium&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wl] Chemin St-Roch (Road) in the city of "Hamme Mille" near Beauvechain, province of Walloon Brabant, Belgium
* [http://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=en&tab=wl&q=Saint%20Roch%2C%20Belgium] Chemin Saint Roch (Road) in the city of Beaumont, province of Hainaut, Belgium
*St. Roch, Canadian RCMP Arctic survey schooner built in 1928

Popular culture

* A popular Spanish tongue twister is "El perro de san Roque no tiene rabo porque Ramón Ramírez se lo ha robado" ("Saint Roch's dog has no tail because Ramón Ramírez stole it").

* In Bolivia, Saint Roch's day, though not as celebrated as it once was, is considered the "birthday of all dogs", in which the dogs around town can be seen with colorful ribbons tied to them.

* The main train station of Montpellier, France is named after St. Roch, as well as a church and many squares and streets.

* In Bingen, Germany there is a St. Rochus pilgrimage church on top of a hill. Every year in August a one week pilgrimage -the "St. Rochusfest"- is held in memory of a 17th century vow of the city council.

*Some churches that are named after the saint distribute, as a pietistic practice, the "bread of Saint Rocco" to parishioners on August 16th, his feast day.

* Saint Rocco's procession is the Saint featured in the movie "The Godfather Part II".

* The Society of San Rocco Di Simbario (Italy) was officially founded in April of the year 1920 in Chicago by Bruno Bertucci. He owned and operated a small grocery store at the corner of 24th Street and Princeton Avenue, near Chinatown, at the St. Therese Chinese Church, formerly known as "Santa Maria Incoronata". [ [http://www.sttheresechinatown.org/history_of_the_st_rocco_dovotion.html History of Saint Rocco Devotion] ]

* According to Montague Summers' "The Vampire in Europe", St. Roch was prayed to in Poland to ward off vampire attacks.

Notes

References

*1911
*"Acta sanctorum", August, iii.
* Charles Cahier, "Les Caracteristiques des saints", Paris, 1867

External links

* [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13100c.htm "Catholic Encyclopedia" 1908:] "Saint Roch"
* [http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/goldenlegend/GoldenLegend-Volume5.htm Medieval Sourcebook: "The Golden Legend", book V] : Saint Rocke, William Caxton, translator
* [http://saints.sqpn.com/saintr06.htm Patron Saints: Saint Roch]