EUCHARISTIO
594
EUCHARinS
of Milan, Mathieu of France, and Mercier of Belgium.
Bishops, priests, and laymen from all quarters of the
globe were about them. The regular sessions began
on 10 September, .\rchbishop .4mette of Paris cele-
brating the Mass. Two sectional meetings in English
and one in French then listened to the papers and dis-
cussions. In the evening there was a great meeting of
15,000 people at the .\lbert Hall, to greet the papal
legate, at which meeting resolutions pledging all to
promote devotion to the Eucharist and unalterable
fidelity to the Holy See were passed. The speakers
included .Archbishops Carr of Melbourne and Bruchesi
of Montreal. On 11 September Archbishop ^'an der
Wetering, of Utrecht, was the celebrant of the Mass,
and the next day Mass was celebrated according to the
Byzantine Rite by the Very Reverend .Arsenius
Atiych, archimandrite of the church of Saint-Julien-
le-Pauvre of Paris, assisted by several Greek Assump-
tionist priests from Constantinople. The Mass on
Sunday, 13 September, celebrated by the papal legate,
and at which Cardinal Gibbons preached, closed the
series of splendid ceremonies that marked the con-
gress. A'espers followed, and then the solemn pro-
cession took place.
It had been intended to carry the Blessed Sacra- ment through the streets, but, owing to a protest and public clamour against this, made by the societies com- posing the Protestant Alliance, the Prime ilinister, Mr. Asquith, sent a formal request to .Archbishop Bourne on the part of "His Majesty's Governrnent", for the abandonment of tliis programme, and this was complied with. The legate, attended by a guard of honour headed by the Duke of Norfolk, Earl Marshal of Englanil, and made up of eleven English noblemen and the Duke of Orleans and the Comte d'Eu and some members of the French Chamber of Deputies, after passing over the route, gave solemn benediction from the balcony of the cathedral to the multitude below. Telegraphing after the ceremony to Rome, Cardinal Vaniuitelli said to the Cardinal Secretary of State: "The Congress concluded with a great triumph to-day when the procession passed tlirough the streets of London packed with crowds raising continuous cheers for the cardinal legate and the other cardinals and prelates. The Sacred Host was not carried in the procession, but I gave a final benediction with the Sacrament to the crowd from three open balconies on the facade of the cathedral. Members of the House of Lords formed an escort of honour for me. Perfect order was kept."
The pope sent a special letter to the .Archbishop of Westminster after the congress concluded, stating that, though it was the first of its kind in England, it must be looked on as the greatest of all, for its con- course of illustrious men, for the weight of its delibera- tions, for its display of faith, and for the magnificence of its religious functions. He thanked the archbishop and all who had taken any part in the proceedings. Before it closed the congress decided to have the ses- sion of 1909 meet at Cologne, and that of 1910 at Montreal.
Francois D^sirl, Cardinal Mathieu, .Archbishop of Toulouse, France, who had attended the Congress, was stricken with an illness that necessitated an operation shortly after his arrival in London. He died in Lon- don from the effects of this on the 25th of October following. .Another great dignitary of the Church who was called to his reward shortly after assisting at this memorable congress was Ciriaco Maria, Cardinal Sancha y Herviis, .Archbishop of Toledo and Patriarch of the West Indies, who died at Toledo, 25 February, 1909, in the seventy-first year of his age.
Official reports of the several Eucharistic Conercsses; Skgur, Biog. noiivelle de Mar. de Sraur (Paris, 188S) ; The Tablet. Catho. lie Times, Catholic Herald (London), files, Oct.. Sept., lOOS; The Catholic World (New York, November, 1908): The Itomry Magazine (Somerset. Ohio, Oct., Nov., 190S); The Messenger (New York, Oct., Nov., 1908). Thomas F. MeEHAN.
Eucharistic Test. See Ordeal.
Eucharius, S.unt, first Bishop of Trier (Treves) in the second half of the third century. .Accortling to an ancient legend, he was one of the seventy-two dis- ciples of Clirist, and was sent to Gaul by St. Peter as bishop, together with the deacon Valerius and the subdeacon Maternus, to preach the Gospel. They came to the Rhine and to Elegia (Ehl) in Alsace, where Maternus died. His two companions hastened back to St. Peter and begged him to restore the dead man to life. St. Peter gave his pastoral staff to Eu- charius, and, upon being touched with it, Maternus, who had been in his grave for forty days, returned to life. The Gentiles were then converted in large num- bers. After founding many churches the three com- panions went to Trier where the work of evangeliza- tion progressed so rapidly that Eucharius chose that city for his episcopal residence. Among other mira- cles related in the legend he raised a dead person to life. An angel announced to him his approaching death and pointed out A'alerius as his successor. Eu- charius died S Dec, having been bishop for twenty- five years, and was interred in the church of St. John outsi(.le the city. Valerius was bishop for fifteen years and was succeeded by Maternus, who had in the meantime founded the dioceses of Cologne and Ton- gres. being bishop altogether for forty years. The staff of St. Peter, with which he had been raised to life, was preserved at Cologne till the end of the tenth cen- tury when the upper half was presented to Trier, and was afterwards taken to Prague by Emperor Charles IV.
In the Middle .Ages it was believed that the pope used no crozier, because St. Peter had sent his episcopal staff to St. Eucharius; Innocent III con- curs in this opinion (De Sacrif. Missae, I, 62). The same instance, however, is related of several other alleged disciples of St. Peter, and more recent criti- cism interprets the staff as the distinctive mark of an envoy, especially of a missionary. Missionaries in subsequent centuries, e. g. St. Boniface, were ocea- sionallj' called ambassadors of St. Peter, the pope who sent them being the successor of Peter. Moreover, in medieval times the fotmdation of a diocese was often referred to as early a date as possible, in order thereby to increase its reputation, perhaps also its rights. Thus Paris gloried in Dionysius .Areopagita as its first bishop: similarly ancient origins were claimed by other prankish dioceses. In time, espe- cially through the ravages of the Xormans, the more relialile earlier accounts were lost. When at a later period the lives of primitive holy founders, e. g. the saints of ancient Trier, came to be wTitten anew, the gaps in tradition were filled out with various com- binations and fanciful legends. In this way there originated in the monastery of St. Matthias near Trier the famous chronicle of Trier (Gesta Treve- rorum, ed. Waitz in Mon. Germ. Hist.; script., A'lII, 111-174) in which there is a curious mi.xture of truth and error. It contains the account of the life of St. Eucharius given above. .An amplification thereof, containing the lives of the three saints in ques- tion, is said to have been written by the monk Goldscher or Golscher, who lived in that monastery about the year 1130. From the "Gesta" the narra- tive passed unchallenged into numerous medieval works. More recent criticism has detected many contradictions and inaccuracies in these ancient rec- ords, and it is almost universally believed at present that, with few exceptions, the first Christian mission- aries came to Gaul, to which Trier then belonged, not earlier than about 250. Following Hontheira, Calmet and others, the BoUandists, with Marx, Liitolf, and other historians refer these holy bishops of Trier to a period following 250, though not all of them consider this as fully established. The feast of St. Eucharius is celebrated on 8 Dec.
