Christian legend
According to some Christian theologians Saint Michael may appear in Scripture where his name is not mentioned. Examples of this include the cherub who stood at the gate of paradise, "to keep the way of the tree of life" (Genesis 3:24), the angel through whom God published the Decalogue to his chosen people, the angel who stood in the way against Balaam (Numbers 22:22 sqq.), the angel who routed the army of Sennacherib (2 Kings 19:35).
It may have been natural to St Michael, the champion of the Jewish people, to be the champion also of Christians, giving victory in war to his clients. The early Christians, however, regarded some of the martyrs as their military patrons: Saint George, Saint Theodore, Saint Demetrius, Saints Sergius and Bacchus, Saint Procopius, Saint Mercurius, etc.; but to St Michael they gave the care of their sick. At the place where he was first venerated, in Phrygia (modern-day Turkey), his prestige as an angelic healer obscured his interposition in military affairs. It was from early times the centre of the true cult of the holy angels, particularly of St Michael. Tradition relates that Saint Michael in the earliest ages caused a medicinal spring to spout at Chairotopa near Colossae, where all the sick who bathed there, invoking the Blessed Trinity and St Michael, were cured.
Still more famous are the springs which St. Michael is said to have drawn from the rock at Colossae (Chonae, on the Lycus). Tradition tells that the pagans directed a stream against the sanctuary of St. Michael to destroy it, but the custodian of the shrine, named Archippus, prayed to St. Michael and the archangel appeared and split the rock, opening up a new bed to divert the stream, and forever sanctified the waters which came from the gorge. The Orthodox Church believes that this apparition took place about the middle of the first century and celebrates a feast in commemoration of it on September 6[8] as the "Miracle of the Archangel Michael at Chonae."[9] The Monastery of the Miracle in the Moscow Kremlin, where the Russian Tsars were baptized, was dedicated to the Feast of the Miracle at Chonae (Kona). Hot springs at Pythia in Bithynia and elsewhere in Asia Minor were also dedicated to St Michael.
At Constantinople likewise, Saint Michael was the great heavenly physician. His principal sanctuary, the "Michaelion", was at Sosthenion, some fifty miles south of Constantinople. He supposedly visited Emperor Constantine the Great at Constantinople, intervened in assorted battles, and appeared, sword in hand, over the mausoleum of Hadrian, in apparent answer to the prayers of Pope St. Gregory I the Great (r. 590-604) that a plague in Rome should cease. In honor of the occasion, the pope took to calling the mausoleum the "Castel Sant'Angelo" (Castle of the Holy Angel), the name by which it is still known. The sick slept in this church at night to wait for a manifestation of St Michael; his feast was kept there June 9.
Another famous church was within the walls of the city, at the thermal baths of the Emperor Arcadius; there the synaxis of the archangel was celebrated November 8. This feast spread over the entire Greek Church, and the Syrian, Armenian, and Coptic Churches also adopted it. It is currently the principal feast of St Michael amongst the Eastern Christians. Although originating in Phrygia, its station at Constantinople was known as the "Thermae of Arcadius" (Martinow, "Annus Graeco-slavicus", November 8). Other feasts of St Michael at Constantinople were: October 27, in the "Promotu" Church; June 18, in the Church of St Julian at the Forum; and December 10, at Athaea.
Archangel Michael as represented on a coin of Emperor
Michael V.
The Christians of Egypt placed their life-giving river, the Nile, under the protection of Saint Michael; they adopted the above Greek feast and kept it on November 12. On the twelfth of every month they celebrate a special Commemoration of the Archangel Michael. In addition, on June 12, when the Nile river commences to rise, they keep as a day of obligation the feast of "St Michael for the rising of the Nile."
At Rome the Leonine Sacramentary (sixth century) has the "Natale Basilicae Angeli via Salaria", September 30; of the five Masses for the feast three mention St Michael. The Gelasian Sacramentary (seventh century) gives the feast "S. Michaelis Archangeli", and the Gregorian Sacramentary (eighth century), "Dedicatio Basilionis S. Angeli Michaelis", September 29. A manuscript also here adds "via Salaria" (Ebner, "Miss. Rom. Iter Italicum", 127). This Church of the Via Salaria was six miles to the north of the city; in the ninth century it was called Basilica Archangeli in Septimo (Armellini, "Chiese di Roma", p. 85). It disappeared a thousand years ago. At Rome also the part of heavenly physician was given to St Michael. According to an (apocryphal?) legend of the tenth century he appeared over the Moles Hadriani (Castel di S. Angelo), in 950, during the procession which St. Gregory held against the pestilence, putting an end to the plague. Pope Boniface IV (608-15) built on the Moles Hadriani in honour of him, a church, which was styled St. Michaelis inter nubes (in summitate circi).
Fontaine Saint-Michel in Paris
The Roman Breviary for 8 May relates the story of the apparition of Saint Michael (494 or 530-40) at his sanctuary on Monte Gargano, where his original glory as patron in war was restored to him. To his intercession the Lombards of Sipontum (modern-day Manfredonia) attributed their victory over the Greek Neapolitans 8 May 663. To commemorate this victory the Church of Sipontum instituted a special feast on 8 May in honour of the archangel, which spread throughout the Latin Church under the name "Apparition of St Michael", although it originally commemorated the victory, not the apparition. The Tridentine Calendar gave this feast the rank of "Double", which was raised in 1602 to the newly invented rank of "Greater Double". In 1960 Pope John XXIII removed it from the General Roman Calendar, along with other cases of second feasts of a single saint.[10]
In Normandy, Saint Michael is the patron of mariners in his famous sanctuary at Mont-Saint-Michel in the Diocese of Coutances. He is said to have appeared there, in 708, to St. Aubert, Bishop of Avranches. In Normandy his feast "S. Michaelis in periculo maris" or "in Monte Tumba" was universally celebrated on October 18, the anniversary of the dedication of the first church, October 16, 710; the feast is now confined to the Diocese of Coutances.
In Germany, after its evangelization, Saint Michael replaced for the Christians the pagan god Wotan, to whom many mountains were sacred, hence the numerous mountain chapels of St. Michael all over Germany. He is also known as the patron saint of the German Nation. His picture bedecked the war standard of the old German Empire (the Holy Roman Empire).
The hymns of the Roman Office are said to have been composed by Saint Rabanus Maurus of Fulda (d. 856). In art, St Michael is represented as an angelic warrior, fully armed with helmet, sword, and shield (often the shield bears the Latin inscription: "Quis ut Deus"), standing over the dragon, whom he sometimes pierces with a lance. He also holds a pair of scales in which he weighs the souls of the departed (cf. Rock, "The Church of Our Fathers", III, 160), or the Book of Life, to show that he takes part in the judgment. His feast (September 29) in the Middle Ages was celebrated as a holy day of obligation, as he was the patron of knights, but along with several other feasts it was gradually abolished since the eighteenth century. Michaelmas Day, in England and other countries, is one of the regular quarter-days for settling rents and accounts; but it is no longer remarkable for the hospitality with which it was formerly celebrated. Stubble-geese being esteemed in perfection about this time, most families had one dressed on Michaelmas Day. In some parishes (Isle of Skye) they had a procession on this day and baked a cake, called St Michael's bannock.
Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christians often refer to the angel Michael as "Saint Michael", an honorific title that does not indicate canonisation. He is generally referred to in Christian litanies as "Saint Michael the Archangel." Orthodoxy accords him the title "Archistrategos", or "Supreme Commander of the Heavenly Hosts."
St Michael's Victory over the Devil, sculpture above the main entrance to
St. Michaelis in Hamburg, Germany.
Saint Michael was usually honored on mountain tops and high places, and many famous shrines to him survive on those places, often replacing shrines of pre-Christian gods concerned with weather, like Wotan.
In Greek folklore, St Michael also assumed the god Hermes' role as the psychopomp who leads souls to Hades, and in the role of weigher of souls on Judgment Day. A related folk belief is that St Michael's face can only be seen by the dead and by those about to die. It is for this reason that some folk icons depict him without a face.
The Roman Catholic Church honors Saint Michael with four main titles. He is the Christian angel of death, carrying the souls of all the deceased to heaven, where they are weighed in his perfectly balanced scales (hence Michael is often depicted holding scales). At the hour of death, Michael descends and gives each soul the chance to redeem itself before passing, thus consternating the devil and his minions. St Michael is the special patron of the Chosen People in the Old Testament and is guardian of the Church; it was thus not unusual for the angel to be revered by the military orders of knights during the Middle Ages. Last, he is the supreme enemy of Satan and the fallen angels.
In the Roman Catholic calendar of saints and the Lutheran Calendar of Saints, his feast day, once widely known as Michaelmas, is celebrated September 29 and was one of the four quarter days on which accounts were settled and, in England, when terms began in universities. In the Eastern Orthodox Church his principal feast day is November 8, where he is honored along with the rest of the "Bodiless Powers of Heaven" as their Supreme Commander, and his miraculous appearance at Colossae (see below) is commemorated on September 6.
The last visit, that of his appearance over the mausoleum of Hadrian, certified one major aspect involving Michael, namely his role as an angel of healing. This title was bestowed at Phrygia, in Asia Minor, which also propagated the cult of angels and became a leading center for their veneration. St Michael is reputed to have caused a healing spring to flow in the first century at Colossae, and his churches were frequently visited by the sick and lame. The angel is invoked additionally as the patron of sailors in Normandy (the famous monastery of Mont Saint Michel on the north coast of France is named after him). He is especially remembered in France as the angel who, along with Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret gave Saint Joan of Arc the courage to save her country from the English during the Hundred Years' War (1337-1455). Perhaps his most singular honor was given to him in 1950 when Pope Pius XII (r. 1939-1958) named him patron of policemen. St Michael is also said to have announced to the Virgin Mary her impending death, declaring himself to be "Great and Wonderful."
According to legend, Michael instructed St. Aubert, bishop of Avranches to build a church on the rocky islet now known as Mont Saint Michel in 708. Also dedicated to Michael was the French Order of St Michel founded in 1469. Today, however, he is more usually associated with police officers, paramedics, EMTs and other emergency workers. He is also claimed as the patron saint of the American airborne units. He is the patron of Ukraine and its capital Kiev and of the archdiocese of Seattle.
In Australia, National Police Remembrance day is commemorated on September 29 each year, being the feast day of St Michael.
Under the influence of the widely read angelology of the Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, among Church fathers much time was spent allotting Michael a rank in the celestial hierarchy: Alfonso Salmeron, Cardinal Bellarmine, Saint Basil the Great's homily (De Angelis) and other Greek fathers place Saint Michael over all the angels; they say he is called "Archangel" because he is the prince of the other angels. Others (cf. P. Bonaventura, op. cit.) believe that he is the prince of the Seraphim, the first of the nine angelic orders. According to Saint Thomas Aquinas (Summa Ia. 113.3), he is the Prince of the last and lowest choir, the angels.
The hymn of the Mozarabic Breviary places St Michael even above the Twenty-four Elders.
A favorite angelic subject in art, matched only by Saint Gabriel, Saint Michael is often depicted as winged and with unsheathed sword. As with all angels' iconography, his wings represent swiftness, his sword means authority or power, and his white raiment stands for his enlightenment.[11] In the Renaissance period, he is shown as young, strong, and handsome, and is most often depicted as a proud, handsome angel in white or magnificent armor or a splendid coat of mail and equipped with sword, shield and spear. His wings are generally conspicuous and very grand. He is usually shown holding in his hand a banner or the scales of justice. Quite often he is seen, like Saint George and in some representations of the Madonna, in conflict with a dragon or standing upon a vanquished devil, who most of the time is Satan.
