Viator of Lyons

Who they were

Viator was a lector of the cathedral of Lyons in the fourth century, whose work was reading and explaining the Scriptures to the people and teaching the children the faith; he was much loved by his bishop, St. Justus. After the Council of Aquileia in 381, Justus decided to spend the rest of his life in penance in the deserts of Egypt and chose the young Viator as his companion.

Both died in holiness in a monastery at Scete in 389. His feast is 21 October. Because he became holy by teaching the young, he was chosen in 1835 as patron of the Clerics of St. Viator, a teaching congregation founded near Lyons.

The miracles

There was never a formal cause: he has been honoured as a saint since before the Church's formal processes began.

Why that counted as sanctity

A young lector of Lyons who followed his bishop into the Egyptian desert.