HISTORICALEIGH - So who was St Clement?

March 17, 2015 by Carole Mulroney

So who was St Clement?

St Clement is, appropriately enough, the patron saint of sailors and he is commemorated on 23 November.

Clement was in fact a Roman citizen who studied philosophy. He travelled to Palestine where he became a disciple of St Peter who took him to Rome where he consecrated him as a bishop and he later became Pope.

St Clement was martyred during the reign of the Roman Emperor Trajan in AD100. Having been banished to work in a marble quarry, legend has it that one day he saw a lamb scraping the ground and an abundant spring burst through becoming a stream.

He stayed for three years preaching until the Emperor found out and it was decreed he be punished by being thrown in to the sea with an anchor around his neck.

Legend says that the Christians prayed for God to show them where his body was and miraculously the sea receded from the shore three miles and the body was found anchored in a kind of shrine.