Sabinus of Canosa

Saint Sabinus of Canosa
Priest, Bishop
Born	Template:461 Canosa di puglia, Apulia, Italy
Died	Template:566 Canosa di Puglia, Apulia, Italy
Venerated in	Roman Catholic Church
Major shrine	Cattedrale di Canosa, Italy
Feast	February_9
Patronage	Canosa, Atripalda

Saint Sabinus of Canosa (Italian: San Sabino) (461 – 9 February 566), venerated as a saint in the Roman Catholic church, was bishop of Canosa di Puglia from 514.

He was sent twice as a papal envoy to Constantinople, in 525, by Pope John I and in 536 to accompany Pope Agapitus I, who lost his life on the journey, to defend the true faith against the Monophysite heresy.

In 531, in the papacy of Pope Boniface II, he took part in the Synod of Rome. He was a builder of churches and other religious buildings, according to the Benedictine discipline of Ora et labora ("Work and pray").

He died after 52 years as bishop, on 9 February 566.

Sabinus was a friend of Saint Benedict, whom he visited at Montecassino and to whom, as recorded by Gregory the Great, he once expressed his preoccupations on the incursions of the Ostrogoth King Totila into the Italian peninsula. According to the hagiographic legend, he succeeded in saving Canosa di Puglia from the threat of the latter. There is a story that in 548 Totila wanted to test the prophetic gifts of Sabinus, who was by then old and blind. The king, pretending to be a servant, offered him a goblet of wine, but Sabinus was not deceived and thanked him by name, which impressed Totila so much that he renounced his pillaging.

Another legend of Sabinus relates that a jealous archdeacon tried to poison him. Sabinus drank the poison but did not die; but the archdeacon did. For this reason he appeared in the liturgy as a protector against poisons.

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