Biography
Ovidius of Braga
About Ovidius of Braga
Ovidius, called Ovídio in Portuguese and also known as Auditus, is venerated in Braga. Later tradition presents him as the city’s third bishop and a martyr. His personal history is uncertain: Antonio Borrelli explicitly attributes the familiar life story to sixteenth-century hagiographies.
Those accounts describe a Roman citizen of Sicilian origin, sent to Braga by Clement I, who became bishop around 95 and suffered martyrdom in 135. These are dates within the later narrative, rather than an established chronology of his life.
Martins’s study of the churches dedicated to him in Mafamude likewise identifies the biographical information as late supposition. It discusses the change from the name Auditus, through the Portuguese Ouvido, to Ovídio, and records differing inscriptions associated with his tomb in Braga Cathedral.
The surviving devotion is more clearly visible. A 1991 Portuguese parliamentary report describes a chapel at Semadela, Caldelas, built in 1739. Its image represents Ovidius with a mitre and pastoral staff. The report records the popular invocation Sant’Ouvido and the custom of seeking his intercession for ear ailments, suggesting that the sound of his name helped shape that association.
The Braga calendar commemorates him on 3 June; the same report notes a local celebration on the following Sunday when the date falls during the working week.
Braga Cathedral’s own description includes his image among the older devotional furnishings of its cloister. John Riddington Young’s historical overview of patron saints of the ear also identifies Ovidius, or Auditus, among those traditionally invoked in connection with deafness.
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