The small Apennine town of Sarsina, the birthplace of the Roman playwright Plautus, is the ancient see of St. Vicinius (Vicinio), 4th-century bishop and renowned exorcist. Sarsina preserves, beneath the high altar of its Romanesque basilica, a small relic of the Holy Blood — translated to Sarsina in the early medieval period from one of the great Eastern collections, and venerated at the basilica together with the Iron Collar of St. Vicinius (a metal yoke worn by the saint as penance, used to this day by the basilica's exorcists in the Sarsina prayer of liberation from evil — one of the most ancient continuous exorcism traditions in the West).
tradition dates to 5th cent.; relic at Sarsina from medieval period · Basilica of Saint Vicinius, Sarsina, Italy
Status: approved holy see
Figures
- · St. Vicinius of Sarsina