Venerable Alvise

He became prior of S aint-Vaast in Arras . After a two-year stay in this abbey, the monks of Anchin, stron gly ur ged by the abbot of Saint-Bertin to adopt the Cluniac reform, elected Alvise to govern them (1142). He left with the unanimous regrets of the monks of Arras, and he himself left this community with great sorrow. Soon, all monastic virtues were seen to shine at Anchin, just as they had at Saint-Vaast in Arras.

For nearly twenty years already, the Abbey of Anchin had prospered under the wise leadership of Alvise, when he was elected Bishop of Arras in 1131. Upon learning of his election, he showed great reluctance and responded with a refusal. It was necessary for P ope Innocent II, who was then at Pontoise, to enjoin him to submit and accept. The King of France, Louis the Fat , also wrote to him to urge him to allow the laying on of hands. At the same time, he wrote to Thierry of Alsace, Count of Flanders, as well as to the clergy and people of Arras, to congratulate them on this election. From the first year of his episcopacy, Alvise applied himself to reforming religious houses, convinced that their proper direction is of a nature to provide public edification and to draw the blessings of heaven upon a diocese. In 1134, he went with his metropolitan, the Archbishop of Reims, to the Council of Pisa where Saint Bernard was present, and which resulted in the excommunication of the antipope Anaclet us, a competitor of Innocent II. While returning to France, the Bishop of Arras was arrested and mistreated by people of the antipope's party. Several other prelates were seized at the same time and shared his captivity. This arrest was not of long duration.

A friend and compatriot of the famo us Suger, Abbot of Saint-Denis, Alvise was invited by this statesman (1144) to attend the consecration of his monastery's church, a monument no less remarkable for the style of its architecture and the richness of its decoration than for its destiny to become the burial place of the kings of France. In the crusade preached by Saint Bernard and led by Louis VII, Alvise was sent as an ambassador to the Greek Emperor Manuel Komnenos to request passage through his lands; but he fell ill in Philippi and died the re (1147). His body was buried outside the city, in the church of Saint George, before the altar, where his tomb became an object of veneration.

Purenty, canon of Arras, in the Legendary of the Morinie.