Feast day: March 6
St. Fridolin of Säckingen
An Irish missionary monk who, by tradition, wandered the upper Rhine founding churches and monasteries, most famously the island abbey of Säckingen.
Fridolin is honoured as the first Irish missionary to labour among the Alemanni of the upper Rhine, in the age of the Merovingian Franks — though the details of his life survive only in a much later biography and are heavily wrapped in legend.
According to that account, he was a wandering monk from Ireland who preached through Gaul, restored a ruined church dedicated to St. Hilary at Poitiers, and then pressed on up the Rhine, founding a monastery on the island of Säckingen with a community of nuns.
The most famous legend tells how a benefactor named Urso left him land; when Urso's brother disputed the gift, Fridolin is said to have raised the dead Urso to testify on his behalf in court — which is why the saint is often shown in art accompanied by a skeleton.
Whatever the truth of these tales, his cult was real and lasting. Fridolin became the patron of the Swiss canton of Glarus, which bears his image to this day, and his feast is kept on 6 March.
Legend says he was called 'the Traveler' for the distances he covered planting the faith along the Rhine from Gaul into the Alps.
Image: AnonymousUnknown author (Public domain), via Wikimedia Commons.
Source: newadvent.org/cathen/06303c.htm
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