The foundation of Lérins
It was at the beginning of the fifth century that St Honorat found..,
by settling in Lérina, the desert he had longed for and which was soon to become one of the most radiant centres of early Western monasticism. Honorat, originally from Gaul and from a noble family, converted and was baptised while still in his teens. Attracted by the monastic ideal, he retired with his brother Venance to a family estate.
After a while, they embarked with an elder, Caprais, probably in Marseille, to go to the sources of monasticism in the East. During the voyage, Venance died and Honorat and Caprais, with a few companions, returned to Provence. Between 400 and 410, Honorat and his companions arrived on the island that today bears his name.
With the blessing of Leonce, Bishop of Fréjus, he founded a cenobitic community (where the monks lead a communal life).
By 427, according to Cassian (founder of a monastic community in Marseille), this community was already an "immense monastery". The monastic life established by Honorat was codified in a written rule, the first of which, the "Rule of the Four Fathers", was the first of its kind in Gaul.
However, Honorat had to leave Lérina, probably in 428, when he was called upon by the people of Arles to accept the episcopal see. He died there in 430.
The 5th and 6th centuries are known as the "golden age" of Lérins.
Its most famous monks were Saint Maxime and Saint Faust, successively abbots of Lérins and bishops of Riez, Saint Hilaire, successor to Saint Honorat in Arles, and Saint Eucher, bishop of Lyon. In the same way, Saint Vincent de Lérins wrote the Commonitorium on the Isle of Saints in 434, in which he proposed to "set out a reliable rule for distinguishing true faith from heresy".
This rule is summed up in the famous formula: "In the Catholic Church, the greatest care must be taken to hold as true what has been believed everywhere, always and by everyone".
In the 6th century, we should mention the great figure of Saint Césaire d'Arles, who had a formulary on the doctrine of grace adopted at the Council of Orange in 529 and wrote a monastic rule for the nuns he had gathered together in Arles, in which he laid down the structure of the Divine Office "as it was celebrated at Lérins". The many bishops who came from the Lérins monastery made a major contribution to the Christianisation of Provence.
The monastery's influence extended even further, notably as far as England, thanks to Saint Benedict Biscop, an English monk trained at Lérins, who founded the monastery at Jarrow in 681, where Bede the Venerable was to live. Tradition has it that Saint Patrick also came to Lérins to train in monastic life for a few years. Similarly, Saint Augustine of Canterbury spent a whole winter there on his way from Rome to England.