Servatius of Tongeren

Servatius held the see of Tongeren in the mid-fourth century. Athanasius counts him among the Gallic bishops at the Council of Serdica, and Sulpicius Severus names him at Rimini in 359 as one of the most steadfast — before adding that after seven months of attrition the bishops accepted a compromise into which Valens slipped an equivocal formula. Tradition has it that, warned of the Huns' approach, he went to pray at Peter's tomb in Rome and returned certain that nothing would halt the invasion: the account is Gregory of Tours's, two centuries later, and the invasion of Gaul postdates his death by two thirds of a century. Gregory says he took his leave of Tongeren and then died of a fever at Maastricht, where the basilica of Saint Servatius rose over his grave. He is counted among the ice saints of mid-May.