Were you — out of quarantine boredom perhaps — to Google "patron saint of pandemics," you might be surprised by the results.

"It's incredible but it's seemingly true – there is a Saint Corona and she is one of the patrons of pandemics," according to the website of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Lansing, Michigan.

Even more incredible, the diocese claims, the remains of the second-century saint are in northern Italy, the epicenter of the recent outbreak of the coronavirus in Europe.

The diocese cites Gloria.tv, a website for Catholic news and memes, as its source for the claims about St. Corona.

St. Corona's purported patronage against pandemic and plague also has been pointed out on social media and on popular Catholic website Aleteia.

"She's been viral online," the Rev. Rich Pagano said in March 16 episode of The Catholic Show podcast noting that people were praying to the saint in northern Italy.

Not so fast, tweeted Candida Moss, the Edward Cadbury Professor of Theology at the University of Birmingham, U.K.

"You have people praying to the patron saint of treasure hunters, which seems to be against CDC guidelines," Moss told Religion News Service.

There is a St. Corona, and her remains are in Anzu, a town in northern Italy, she said.

But her story is complicated, and there is reason to believe she may have been invented, Moss said.