Evasius

Saint Evasius is believed to have been a missionary and bishop of Asti, in northwest Italy. He was forced to flee to the great Padan forest known as the Selva Cornea, where he and numerous followers were beheaded by pagan, or alternatively by Arian, enemies in the area of what is now Casale Monferrato. He is venerated as a saint of the Roman Catholic Church and is the patron of a number of towns in Piedmont and Lombardy. His cult is liveliest at Casale, where his remains are conserved in the cathedral dedicated to him.

No account of Evasiuss life is regarded by scholars of hagiography as reliable. According to the Historia e vita di SantEvasio Vescovo e Martire by the Augustinian Fulgenzio Emiglio, published in 1708, he was born in Benevento, moved to Rome in 260 and was sent as a bishop to Asti in 265. There he suffered persecution at the hands of pagan opponents of Christianity and was forced to leave the town. The earliest account of the story, the anonymous Passio Sancti Evasii, which has been variously dated at early eleventhcentury, tenthcentury and ninthcentury, sets it in the times of the Lombard king Luitprand, who reigned during the years 712744. In the versions deriving from the latter, Evasiuss opponents were Lombard adherents of Arian Christianity, rather than pagans. Still other accounts place his life during the fourth century and have him consecrated as Astis first bishop around 330. Carbon dating of his relics favours the thirdcentury hypothesis.

Source: Wikipedia