Saint Brieg of Saint-Brieuc
The first of May in the Orthodox Church is also the feast day of Saint Brieg, the patron of Saint-Brieuc in Brittany. A Welshman of Ceredigion, Saint Brieg played an active role in the fifth- and sixth-century Christianisation of the Bretons. Like his contemporaries Tudwal, Corentin and Malo, he founded a monastery in Brittany which served as a beacon of education and sanctity in the northwestern peninsula of Gaul.
Brieg [also Briog, Breock, Brieuc or Briomaglus] was born to a noble couple, Cerp and Eldrudd, who lived in Ceredigion. His name was actually originally Briafael; however, after an angel appeared to his mother Eldrudd and persuaded her otherwise, he went by his pet-name of Brieg. His parents sent him abroad into Gaul when he was only nine years old, in the company of Saints Illtud and Padrig. There he learned the Gospels and the ways of Christ from Saint Germain of Auxerre, who consecrated him as a priest when he was old enough. However, Brieg took a desire to return to his native Wales, to Ceredigion.
Saint Brieg set up a hermitage, later a monastery, at the site of Llandyfriog in western Wales. From here he began preaching the Gospel to the local people. He spent some time here before he was visited by an angel and told to undertake a seaward journey to Rome. He boarded a ship with 168 other souls on board, and set sail. On their way, they were attacked by a sea monster, which was warded off by the power of Brieg’s prayers. They landed in Cornwall, where Saint Brieg set about again founding churches and teaching and healing and giving among the local populace. In Cornwall, Brieg’s sojourn is remembered by the toponym of St Breock, where the saint is said to have landed. It is said that he converted the heathen king Cynan Meriadog, the brother of Saint Elen of the Ways.
From Cornwall Saint Brieg made his way into Armorica, landing in Finistère and making his way northeast toward Tréguier along the River Jaudy. Here Saint Brieg founded the monastery which was later given to his kinsman, also from Wales: Saint Tudwal. Saint Brieg did this on account of a plague that was ravaging his native Wales: he desired to return to help the sick, and left in charge the man he felt best fit to take the responsibilities of being an abbot.
Saint Brieg was not long, however, in returning to the Breton coast. Having left Tréguier in Saint Tudwal’s care, he took eighty-four companions and journeyed to the mouth of the river Gouët, which fell under the lordship of his kinsman Riwal Mawr. At first, it seems, Riwal was none too pleased with having to deal with a band of monks foraging on his own doorstep, territory-wise; however, upon learning that Brieg was his kinsman he ran to embrace him instead. He welcomed Brieg as a royal guest and treated his monks with every hospitality, and even gave up his own manor for the monks to use – though it took some political finagling for the monks’ claims to be recognised by the Franks. The site of this monastery is now the Cathédrale de Saint-Etienne in the village that now bears Brieg’s name.
It’s known that Saint Brieg reposed in the Lord on the first of May, but the foregoing hagiography is rather chronologically confused, and it would be difficult from that alone to pinpoint when exactly he lived. He certainly wouldn’t have lived at the same time as Cynan Meriadog, a Romano-British chieftain under Magnus Maximus who held sway in the 300s. It seems to be the consensus of Breton and French religious scholars and historians that Saint Brieg lived during the sixth century, which would make him more the contemporary of Tudwal than it would make him the contemporary of Saint Germanus. Holy hermit and abbot Brieg, pray unto Christ our God for us sinners!
O holy Brieg, Enlightener of the lands of Wales and France:
With miracles thou didst preach Christ in thy life,
And in death thy fragrance proclaimed thy glory.
Pray to Christ our God that our souls may be saved.
Cathédrale de Saint-Etienne, Saint-Brieuc, France
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