Sulpitius the Pious

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Sulpitius the Pious (not to be confused with Sulpicius Severus or St. Sulpitius the Severe) or the Débonnaire, born at Vatan (Diocese of Bourges), of noble parents, before the end of the 6th century, devoted himself from his youth to good works and the study of Holy Scripture.

Austregisilus, Bishop of Bourges, ordained him cleric of his church, then deacon, and finally made him director of his episcopal school. Clotaire II, King of the Franks, who had heard his merits spoken of, summoned him and made him chaplain of his armies. But at the death of Bishop Austregisilus (c. 624) he was recalled to Bourges to take his place. Sulpitius thenceforth labored with much zeal and success to re-establish ecclesiastical discipline, for the relief of the poor and the conversion of the Jews.

In 626 Sulpitius assisted at the Council of Clichy and held several others with the bishops of his province, but nothing of them remains. He intervened with King Dagobert in behalf of his flock, of whom a too heavy tax was exacted. At the request of the same king he consecrated to the See of Cahors his treasurer St. Didier, who was his personal friend, and there are extant three letters which he addressed to him. Towards the end of his life Sulpitius took a coadjutor, Vulfolnde, and retired to a monastery which he had founded near Bourges. There he died January, 646, which day several manuscripts of the Hieronymian Martyrology indicate as his feast. In his honour the church bearing his name was built in Paris, from which the Society of Saint-Sulpice derives its own.