ANDREW OF RINN, BL.

Also known as Anderl, peasant child, alleged martyr; b. Nov. 16, 1459; d. Rinn, near Innsbruck, Austria, July 12, 1462. At his father Simon Oxner's death, his mother Maria entrusted Andrew, then two years old, to the care of his uncle Meyer, an innkeeper. Andrew disappeared July 12, 1462, and his mother found his body hanging from a tree in a nearby forest. The uncle claimed he had sold the child to Jews returning from a fair. The child's body was buried in a cemetery of Ampass without any extant evidence of a juridical investigation. Veneration was first given to the remains when the inhabitants of Rinn, imitating the citizens of Trent who honored a boy, simon of trent, murdered by Jews in 1475, solemnly transferred Andrew's body to Rinn c. 1677–85. His cult spread through northern Tyrol and a commemoration Mass first celebrated in his honor in 1722. Upon the petition of the bishop of Brixen and the abbot of the prémontrés of Wilten, Benedict XIV approved his equivalent beatification Dec. 25, 1752 because of the pre-existing cultus, but refused canonization Feb. 22, 1755. In 1985 Bp. Reinhold Stecher of Innsbruck ordered the body transferred from the church to the parish cemetery. His cultus was officially forbidden in 1994.

See Also: medieval boy martyrs.

Bibliography: a. kembter, Acta pro ueritate martyrri corporis el cultus publici B. Andreae Rinnensis (Innsbruck 1745). benoÂt xiv, Constitutio XLIV: Beatus Andreas, dans Bullarium romanum magnam sue ejusdem Continuatio (Luxembourg 1758) 120–136. j. deckert, Vier Tiroler Kinder, Opfer des chassidischen Fanatismus (Vienne 1893). w. kunzemann, Judenstein: Das Ende einer Legende (Innsbruck 1995). e. vacandard, Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques, ed. a. baudrillart et al. (Paris 1912) 2:1700–02. a. butler, The Lives of the Saints, ed. h. thurston and d. attwater (New York 1956) 3:86–87. m. mayer, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. j. hofer and k. rahner (Freiburg 1957–65) 1:519. j. l. baudot and l. chaussin, Vies des saints et des bienhereux selon l'ordre du calendrier avec l'historique des fêtes (Paris 1935–56) 7:282.

[m. g. mcneil]