For homonyms, including another saint, see Fulgentius (disambiguation).

Saint Fulgentius of Cartagena , born in Cartagena in the 6th century and died in 630, was Bishop of Cartagena and Ecija

Écija

Écija is a city belonging to the province of Seville, Spain. It is located in the Andalusian countryside, 85 km east of the city of Seville. According to the 2008 census, Écija has a total population of 40,100 inhabitants, ranking as the fifth most populous city in the province...

 (Astigi), in Hispania

Hispania

Another theory holds that the name derives from Ezpanna, the Basque word for "border" or "edge", thus meaning the farthest area or place. Isidore of Sevilla considered Hispania derived from Hispalis....

 (the Iberian Peninsula

Iberian Peninsula

The Iberian Peninsula , sometimes called Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes the modern-day sovereign states of Spain, Portugal and Andorra, as well as the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar...

, comprising modern Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 and Portugal

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

).

Biography

Like his brothers Leander of Seville

Leander of Seville

Saint Leander of Seville , brother of the encyclopedist St. Isidore of Seville, was the Catholic Bishop of Seville who was instrumental in effecting the conversion to Catholicism of the Visigothic kings Hermengild and Reccared of Hispania .-Family:Leander and Isidore and...

 and Isidore of Seville

Isidore of Seville

Saint Isidore of Seville served as Archbishop of Seville for more than three decades and is considered, as the historian Montalembert put it in an oft-quoted phrase, "le dernier savant du monde ancien"...

, two Archbishops of Seville, of whom the first was older and the second younger than Fulgentius, he consecrated himself to the service of the Church. A sister of the three was St. Florentina. Their father Severianus lived at first in Cartagena

Cartagena, Spain

Cartagena is a Spanish city and a major naval station located in the Region of Murcia, by the Mediterranean coast, south-eastern Spain. As of January 2011, it has a population of 218,210 inhabitants being the Region’s second largest municipality and the country’s 6th non-Province capital...

; he was a Roman, and, according to later though doubtful information, an imperial prefect.

Exact data regarding the life of Fulgentius are wanting, as he is mentioned only occasionally in contemporary sources. Leander, in his "Libellus" on the religious life written for his sister Florentina states that he has sent Fulgentius back to his native town of Cartagena, which he now regrets as he fears that harm may befall him, and he requests Florentina to pray for him. What the danger was to which Fulgentius was exposed we have no means of knowing. Probably through the influence of Leander, who was made Archbishop of Seville in the year 584 and who played an important part in the affairs of the Visigothic kingdom, Fulgentius became Bishop of Astigi (Ecija), in the eccleslastical province of Seville

Seville

Seville is the artistic, historic, cultural, and financial capital of southern Spain. It is the capital of the autonomous community of Andalusia and of the province of Seville. It is situated on the plain of the River Guadalquivir, with an average elevation of above sea level...

.

As Leander died in 600 and Pegasius is shown to have still been Bishop of Ecija in 590, we may safely assume that Fulgentius was chosen bishop between 590 and 600; at all events he already occupied the see in 610. Isidore, who succeeded to the Archbishopric of Seville upon the death of his brother Leander, dedicated to Fulgentius "his lord, the servant of God", his work on the offices of the Church, "De ecclesiasticis officiis". In fact it was at the solicitation of Fulgentius that he wrote this account of the origin and authors of the Church services i.e., of the Liturgy

Liturgy

Liturgy is either the customary public worship done by a specific religious group, according to its particular traditions or a more precise term that distinguishes between those religious groups who believe their ritual requires the "people" to do the "work" of responding to the priest, and those...

.

At the second synod of Seville (619), for which Isidore had assembled the bishops of the province of Baetica, a controversy between the Bishop of Astigi and the Bishop of Córdoba regarding a church which was claimed by each as belonging to a parish in his diocese was brought up for settlement; a commission was appointed, and it was declared that thirty year's undisturbed possession should constitute a legal title. Fulgentius attended the synod in person, his name being found among the signatures to the Acts of the council. This is the last event in the life of Fulgentius for which we have positive proof. In any case, he died before the year 633, as one Marcianus is shown to have then been Bishop of Astigi.

Veneration

Fulgentius, like his sister and brothers, was reverenced as a saint. In Hispania his feast was celebrated on different days; in the "Acta Sanctorum" of the Bollandists it is on 14 January.

He is frequently confused in medieval writings with Fulgentius of Ruspe

Fulgentius of Ruspe

Saint Fulgentius of Ruspe was bishop of the city of Ruspe, North Africa, in the 5th and 6th century who was canonized as a Christian saint...

; some works have also been attributed to him, of which, however, no traces remain.

It is said that long after their deaths, a part of the bones of St. Fulgentius and those of his sister, St. Florentina, were carried for safety into the Sierra de Guadalupe

Sierra de Villuercas

Sierra de Villuercas, also known as Sierra de Guadalupe after nearby Guadalupe town, is a mountain range in the Montes de Toledo, Spain.-Description:...

, and that in the fourteenth century they were found in the village of Berzocana

Berzocana

Berzocana is a municipality located in the province of Cáceres, Extremadura, Spain. According to the 2005 census , the municipality has a population of 497 inhabitants....

 in those mountains. The other part of their bones are in the cathedral of Murcia

Murcia

-History:It is widely believed that Murcia's name is derived from the Latin words of Myrtea or Murtea, meaning land of Myrtle , although it may also be a derivation of the word Murtia, which would mean Murtius Village...

, where St. Fulgentius is venerated as the patron of the diocese.