The Saint Euphrosynos Cafe

ByzantophileTheodore wrote: ↑Fri 23 January 2026 12:49 am

My problem with Charlemagne as a saint is that the church even in his own time understood he wasn’t a saintly person. There’s a reason why the Orthodox Church didn’t glorify him as a saint for 1200 years. Probably it was that his court was well-known for adultery. He never married his daughters off and had a weird relationship with them. Many saints had visions of Charlemagne in hades. He was a fascinating king for sure and not an evil man - just not saintly.

As for a pan-Orthodox council, it probably won’t happen but that’s OK. The important thing is just to keep the faith in these times.

He actually had a cultus after his death for over a century

The claim that Charlemagne’s body was incorrupt came from a later German Kaiser, but this story was contradicted by Charlemagne’s own private secretary who attested he was buried in a completely different place than this Kaiser claimed. E.R. Chamberlin’s “The Emperor Charlemagne” is recommended reading on this. That book also gets into the court of Charlemagne and his mixed reception by the Church.

Here are the visions: ten years after Charlemagne's death in 814, a monk named Wetti at the monastery of Reichenau had a series of visions of Charlemagne in hades. Another vision from the same period often cited alongside Wetti's happened to a poor woman from Laon who saw Charlemagne in the otherworld - detailing that he was suffering for his sins but would be released and that his son Louis ‘the Pious’ needed to perform acts of penance (masses and prayers) for him.

On that note, there’s a better case to be made that Louis ‘the Pious’ was a saint than his father Charlemagne. Louis took Christian morals more seriously and also faced many betrayals from his family than Charlemagne.

Fr. Seraphim Rose: Orthodox Survival Course:

"First of all, in the 800's there was the rival empire of Charlemagne that was consciously set up as a rival. The Pope indeed chose Charlemagne over Irene the Easterner who was for the icons, and Charlemagne was against the icons, and also favored the Filioque. Already we see that this is very shaky. And this empire gave rise to what was called the Holy Roman Empire in the West."

Letters of Fr. Seraphim Rose (1961-1982)
252.
March 22/April 4, 1978
St. Basil of Ancyra

P.p.s. Regarding the question of Western saints in the Calendar. We would agree with what you say about the impossibility of including some few Western “saints” in Orthodox Calendars (Nicholas I, Charlemagne); but such ones are really very few. Why not a conciliatory attitude towards Augustine of Canterbury and Wilfred: By the way, the Sobor of Bishops of the Russian Church Abroad did give official approval to the veneration of St. Anschar of Hamburg—in the early 1950s, I believe, as reported in The Orthodox Word, 1971, March-April.

Interesting that Rocor was that far ahead. Perhaps it was because of the DP camps in Germany after the war, so Rocor knew about this Saint particularly.

He is venerated all over Scandinavia too. I saw churches dedicated to him in Denmark, for example.

It's St Ansgar's Feast Day today !