Saint Euddogwy of Llandaff
The second of July in the Holy Orthodox Church is the feast of Saint Euddogwy, a seventh-century bishop of Llandaff in Wales who likely came over from Brittany when he was a young man. Traditionally he is the direct successor of Saint Teilo of Carmarthen, supposedly his uncle, but there are some glaring chronological problems with this. Though he is venerated as a local saint in Llandaff, Euddogwy is known in Latin as Oudoceus and in Old English as Octocwig, which shows that he historically had a much broader veneration.
If we take the traditional hagiography with the necessary grain of salt, there is much in it that is likely true. Saint Euddogwy very likely was a Breton of significant worldly rank, and he may very well have been a later descendant, rather than a son, of Budic King of Brittany and thus also kin, several generations removed, of Saint Teilo. He was educated at Llandeilo Fawr as a young man, and became a monk. When he was elected to the bishopric, it is said that he travelled all the way to Canterbury to receive his omophor. This legend seems a trifle far-fetched given the frosty relations between the Celtic and English churches of the time, but if this is indeed true, it is all but certain that he would have taken the omophor from the hands of Saint Theodore of Tarsos.
Upon his return to Wales, he founded a church – very likely a monastic church – outside Llandeilo. This is now Llandaff Cathedral. He had translated some of the relics from Llandeilo to his newly-founded church at Llandaff, which pleased the citizens of Llandeilo not at all. A few of the hardier men went to waylay Saint Euddogwy on the road at a rocky pass near Penallt, and sought to rob him of the relics. Saint Euddogwy inclined his head in prayer, and of a sudden his attackers were stricken blind, and fell on the ground lame. He went his way unharmed and unmolested to Llandaff, with the relics undisturbed.
On another occasion, Saint Euddogwy asked several village women who were washing butter for a drink of water. They laughed at him, claiming they had nothing to hold the water in. Saint Euddogwy took some of the butter and moulded it into the bell-shape of a drinking-vessel. The incredulous women poured water into it, and the saint drank. Once he was finished, he handed the butter bell back to the women, who found to their astonishment that the butter had been transmuted into gold.
At some point during his bishopric, Saint Euddogwy undertook a pilgrimage to the Tombs of the Apostles in Rome. At home he had a minor dispute over some woodlands with a certain Gildas (not the saintly historian), whose timber Euddogwy needed to augment his church in Llandaff. According to the Book of Llandaff, Euddogwy substantially aided the Church in Wales, by managing to procure numerous grants of land for ecclesiastical use from various princes in southern Wales. However, it would have been during or slightly before Euddogwy’s time that the lands of what is now Hereford were conquered by the Middle Angles under Penda.
Bishop Euddogwy occasionally withdrew himself for solitary religious observances and fasting to a cell at Llandogo near Tintern. It was here, on one of these observances, that the blessed bishop reposed in the Lord, on the second of July around the year 700. His relics were interred at Llandaff Cathedral, which was at that time probably a monastic house. Holy bishop Euddogwy, pray unto Christ our God that our souls may be saved!
Llandaff Cathedral, Wales
No comments:
Post a Comment