Quirinus of Neuss
Quirinus of Rome or Quirinus of Neuss († 115 ) was a Roman tribune and Christian martyr dating from the 2nd century.
Legend
To Quirinus ' life many legends, however, there is no reliable historical sources. According to tradition he was a Roman tribune, jailer of St. Alexander and is converted along with his daughter Balbina to Christianity. Under Emperor Hadrian persecuted as a Christian and as beheaded by 115, he was buried in the Praetextatus catacombs on the Appian Way in Rome. Pope Leo IX. gave - according to legend - in 1050 the relics of his sister Matched, abbess in Kanonissenstift to Neuss. For storage of his relics, which are stored in a precious golden reliquary, the Church of St. Quirin was built in Neuss.
Iconography
Shown is Quirinus with martyr's palm, and especially since the 16th/17th. Century as a Roman officer with helmet, lance, flag, coat of arms. As Quirinus of Neuss, he often wears a coat of arms or a flag with nine balls. The nine spheres represent a volksetymologischen respect of the Roman name of Castrum Neuss Novaesium to Latin number novem = nine ago.
Representation of St. Quirinus as bishop, however, relate to the same saint of the 3rd or 4th century, the bishops of Rouen and Sisak in Croatia.
Worship
Since the 11th century patron saint of Quirinus Neuss, his feast is March 30, it is in the Archdiocese of Cologne and Neuss ( here Solemnity ) committed in memory of the traditional day of the Translatio on 30 April (if it is a Sunday otherwise, place the following Sunday a procession of relics ). The relics are in especially for the occasion built Quirinus -Münster (1209-1250) in Neuss in a precious shrine preserved ( Foundation Neuss citizens to Quirinus Jubilee 1900); an older shrine is on loan from the cathedral parish in the Clemens- Sels - Museum.
His veneration spread rapidly throughout Europe. Besides Hubertus, Cornelius and Anthony, the hermit, he is one of the four holy marshals. He is also the patron of horses, cattle and knights and is invoked against the leg and foot problems, gout, paralysis, boils, rashes, pestilence, ear pain, goiter, fistulas, bone chewing, small pox and horse diseases. Neuss has been in the Middle Ages (next to Cologne and Aachen), one of the most important pilgrimage sites in the Rhineland. In addition to monitoring the miraculous relics they strove to drink the miraculous water from the " skull " of the saints.
Until today (especially around April 30 ) people make a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Quirinus (since 2009 Minor Basilica ). In 2008, rector Monsignor Guido Assmann founded the tradition of Quirinus Wallfahrtsoktav that since preceding the festival with procession of the relics.
The song to the holy Quirinus
( Words and music by Julius Busch, 1900)
In the monastery church of the former Dominican convent Lambrecht ( Rhineland -Palatinate ), there is an entire wall of the choir with the Vita of St. Quirinus in secco painting, from the period around 1400.