Αγιος Αλβιανος

What a pleasant surprise I had today.

I was meeting with my catechist/priest, Fr Ioannis, and raised this question about names. He said, yes, even if I were only chrismated, I would have to have a name. It had to be one recognised by the church.

After a momentary flash of disappointment, but before I got round to talking about names I might be interested in choosing, I mentioned that perhaps Albion could be considered a variation of Alban, the first martyr of Britain.

Yes, it might, he said. He went to get a book that contained what seemed to be a million names, to look for Alban. He was scanning it as he walked back in from the other room and stop short with a shout.

"There is a Saint Albianus," he said. "Commemorated on May 25th."

The book seemed to be literally little more than a list of names, and he was unable to tell me anything about the patron I'd gone 58 years without ever knowing I had.

I did some detective work on the net when I got home and found a few snippets:

1. He was bishop of Aena in Asia Minor, but I couldn't find the place in a quick search.
2. He is called hieromartyr, but nothing says anything about where, why or how that came to be.
3. There was a reference to 304, which could be the date of his martyrdorm.
4. There was another reference to him and "his flock," or something like that
5. There was a reference to him having visited the Holy Land.
6. I found no reference to commemoration on May 25th, as in Pater Ioannis' book, but several to May 4.
7. Not suprisingly, I could not find an icon.

Anybody who has more experience in these sorts of searches than I do: could you direct me to additional sources of information.

Yours in Christ,
Albianus