Victorinus of Como

Victorinus was a bishop of Como in northern Italy, remembered chiefly as an ardent opponent of Arianism during a period when that heresy remained influential in the Italian peninsula under Lombard rule. He is numbered among the pre-schism Western saints venerated within the Orthodox tradition, and his commemoration is kept on September 5.

His episcopate fell in the first half of the seventh century, with his death generally placed in the year 644; one diocesan listing dates his activity to around 628. The surviving record of his life is brief, preserving little beyond his office at Como and his resistance to the Arian teaching that denied the full divinity of Christ.

Como at this time lay within a region long marked by ecclesiastical division — its see had taken the side of Aquileia during the Schism of the Three Chapters — and within a political landscape dominated by the Lombards, many of whom adhered to Arianism. A bishop's defense of the Nicene faith in such a setting carried real pastoral and civic weight, and it is for this steadfastness that Victorinus is honored.