The Miraculous San Dioniso of San Dionisio, Parañaque City

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San Dionisio de Parañaque
The last week of October, we could see several ways to prepare for All Saints Day and All Souls Day in a very cookie way, from Halloween parties, the Church endorsed "Parade of Saints" type or the mainstream scary ones.

Recently, in a "Parade of Saints" activity for children in a parish in Bataan province, a photo of a kid whose saint can come across both the holy and the unusual - that of St. Dennis, the famed Bishop and Martyr of France. Curiosity became eminent when mainstream media caught up with the photo.

This is the perfect time to introduce this saint to this blog and we do have a venerated image of St. Denis, or San Dionisio in a barangay bearing his name in Parañaque City.

The devotion to San Dionisio de Parañaque is still observed by the people of Barangay San Dionisio and its neighboring barangays due to numerous miracles attributed to his intercession.


The image

The venerable image of San Dionisio de Parañaque is a centuries old wooden statue depicts the saint headless while his hand is holding its decapitated head. He wears the bishop's choir dress yet the absence absence of his crosier is noticeable. At times, this image is vested on some occasions like his feast day.

St. Denis, Bishop of Paris, France
The Life of St. Denis

Saint Denis, (Latin: Dionysius, Spanish:Dioniso)  was born in Rome in an unknown date. Paris; feast day: Western church, October 9; Eastern church, October 3), allegedly first bishop of Paris, a martyr and a patron saint of France.

Very little is known about the early life of this saint, yet it is said that St. Denis was one of seven bishops sent to Gaul (now France) to convert the people in the reign of the Roman emperor Decius. St. Dennis was belived to be the first bishop of Paris and he was martyred during the persecution of Christians by the Roman emperor Decius in 251 or Valerian in 258. After St. Denis was beheaded, it is said that he was able to pick up his head and continued to preach the Gospel until he died when he reached his diocese.

In the 7th century his relics, which had been founded shortly before by the Merovingian king Dagobert I, were moved to the abbey of St. Denis, near Paris.

A legend recorded in the 9th century recounts that Denis was beheaded on Montmartre and that his decapitated corpse carried his head to the area northeast of Paris where the Benedictine abbey of St. Denis was founded.  St. Denis feast day is celebrated every October 9.
San Dionisio de Parañaque
The devotion in Parañaque City

The history of Barangay San Dionisio is tied to the establishment of its namesake visita or chapel south of La Huerta. The chapel was named after its patron, San Dionisio, whose headless image is enshrined in the brick stone chapel on Elpidio Quirino Avenue, which was originally a wooden chapel built in 1640.

History is quite silent on when the the image of San Dionisio came to Parañaque City yet studies were made and found that the original patron of the barangay is San Jose (his feast day is still celebrated every March 19) and it was later changed to San Dionisio, or "Tata Dune" to his devotees.

The chapel of San Dionisio became an important cultural center of the city because of the traditional comedia and the Sunduan tradition are still performed at the stage besides the chapel, especially on its fiestas.

The devotion at present

The devotion to Tata Dune continues to be vibrant in Barangay San Dionisio over the years. Miracles were reported through his intercession and his feast days - October 9 and 10 is also celebrated festively in thanksgiving to the guidance and protection he granted to his chosen abode. 


References:

Manipon, Roel Hoang, "In Focus: Mock Swords into Cultural Ploughshares: the National University Celebrates with Komedya",National Commission for Culture and the Arts, 2008.
"Events", City Government of Parañaque, Retrieved on October 29, 2019.
"San Dionisio: Kahapon, ngayon at bukas" May 19, 1990 PP.14-15
"St. Denis", Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Denis on October 29, 2019.

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