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Stremonius or Saint Austremonius or Saint Stramonius or Austromoine, the "apostle of Auvergne," was the first Bishop of Clermont. He is venerated as a saint in the Catholic Church.
At Clermont he is said to have converted the senator Cassius of Clermont and the pagan priest Victorinus, to have sent St. Serenus to Thiers, St. Marius to Salers, and Antoninus into other parts of Auvergne, and to have been beheaded. Goyau, Georges. "Diocese of Clermont." The Catholic Encyclopedia Vol. 4. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1908. 12 April 2019
A tradition states that Saint Austremonius ordered Nectarius of Auvergne to Christianize the plain of Limagne in the Massif Central.
He was initially buried in a tomb at Issoire on the Couze. The local view found its origin in a life of St. Austremonius written in the 10th century in the Abbey of Mozac, where the body of the saint was transferred in 761. Havey, Francis. "St. Austremonius." The Catholic Encyclopedia Vol. 2. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1907. 12 April 2019 The Vita was rewritten and amplified by the monks of Issoire, who retained as a relic the saint's head. There is a further elaborated Vita of the late 11th century, with new episodes, made at the same time as a forgery of a charter of Pippin (the Short or one of two kings of Aquitaine being intended). The tomb was opened in 1197.
Gregory of Tours, who was born in Auvergne in 544 and was well versed in the history of that country, looks upon Austremonius as one of the seven envoys who, about 250, evangelized Gaul; he relates how the body of the saint was first interred at Issoire, being there the object of great veneration, before the body, though not the head, was translated to Clermont.
The possibility that the major dioceses of Gaul each needed an apostolic figure, and that where the historical details had lapsed (compare Gatien of Tours) one had to be supplied, to serve local pride, should not be entirely dismissed.
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