Saint Cyngar of Congresbury
Today in the Orthodox Church we celebrate Saint Cyngar of Llangefni. A brother of Prince Selyf of Cornwall, he was the uncle of Saints Cybi Felyn (with whom he is closely associated), Fragan of Armorica and Custennin of Cornwall. He is also sometimes associated with Saint Gildas the Historian.
Saint Cyngar [or Congar] was the son of Geraint, King of Dumnonia, who died fighting against the Saxons in 522 at the Battle of Llongborth. He fled from his father’s court and sought out an eremitical life, putting on a shirt made from goat’s hair, fasting and praying continuously. He founded his hermitage by following a wild boar into its lair and using that as a cell. It was his custom each morning to stand naked in freezing cold water until he had recited the Lord’s Prayer three times. By consistent efforts in clearing and draining the land, he managed to reclaim the swampy marsh he had settled in, and converted it into pasturelands. He righted his yew staff in the earth nearby the cemetery he had dug at the outset of his labours, and this put down roots and grew out branches, and as bystanders watched it put out green leaves, and broadened until it became a massive yew tree. This yew tree provided cool shade to Saint Cyngar and to the other monastic labourers who followed him.
And follow him they did. Cyngar’s lonely hermitage in Somerset had come to be a bustling monastery, and although he dearly loved the monks who came to him Saint Cyngar truly desired the quietude of a life in contemplation of God. (Modern historian of the British saints Sabine Baring-Gould holds that one of the factors that may have driven Saint Cyngar away from Somerset, was the incursion of the Saxons into the area – particularly after the Battle of Dyrham in 577. Once the Saxons controlled Bath, Cyngar’s monastery in Somerset was completely vulnerable to attack from that direction.) And so he crossed the Severn into Glywysing. He tried to found another anchorite’s cell on the slopes of a mountain, but an angel warned him off, and so he moved to another mountain nearby.
As seems not uncommon with the Brythonic hermits – such as Beuno, Illtud and Cyngar’s own nephew Cybi – Cyngar had a vexed and uneasy relationship with the prince on whose land he lived. Church and state in post-Roman Britain did not always get on very well. The two kings of Glywysing with whom Cyngar dealt both tried to run him off or kill him. But both of them quickly thought better of it, either fearing the wrath of God or charmed by Saint Cyngar’s assuagements.
Saint Cyngar then later appears in the Life of his nephew Saint Cybi, whom he loyally accompanies and serves on his missionary farings. Saint Cyngar even joined Saint Cybi in his exile in Ireland. By this point the elderly hermit was so aged that he could no longer eat solid food. This became a problem when their only milk-cow weaned her calf and dried up; he himself nearly starved to death before Saint Cybi could procure a replacement calf so that the cow would give milk again for his uncle’s use. This may have been the proximate cause of Cybi’s return to Wales. The calf of their milk-cow strayed onto the fields of another monastic, Fintan, who complained to the prince and made imprecatory prayers against Saint Cybi, who in turn cursed Fintan before he left Aran. Both Cyngar and Cybi made their way to Ynys Môn thereafter. Cyngar helped Cybi set up his own cell at Caer Gybi, before moving off to a hermitage of his own at Llangefni.
Saint Cyngar did not remain there long. Even in his advanced age, he desired to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and he did so at the end of his life. Traditions vary as to where he reposed. Welsh sources have it that he died in Jerusalem and his relics were translated back to Congresbury. One Breton source has it that he died at Morbihan, shortly after crossing the English Channel into Brittany, from whence his relics came. (Baring-Gould finds the latter account more credible.)
Saint Cyngar was venerated at Congresbury for a long time thereafter, and had a healthy local cultus among Saxons and Britons alike. King Ine of Wessex, the son of Saint Cædwalla, dedicated a great deal of silver to the church, and had Cyngar’s monastery reopened and rededicated to the Holy Trinity, though the contemporary Bishop Asser states it had fallen out of use by the time of Ælfrǽd King. Cyngar’s church would be established anew in the thirteenth century under dedication to Saint Andrew. Holy abbot Cyngar, gentle monk and pilgrim, intercede for the sake of us sinners with Christ our God!
In Congresbury’s monastery thou wast laid to rest, O Father Cyngar,
Evangeliser of Somerset and teacher of monastics.
Pray to God for us that we may worthily follow in thy footsteps,
Bringing the light of the Faith to those who languish in the darkness of unbelief,
Making this a second Age of Saints,
That thereby many souls may be saved.
The remnants of Saint Cyngar’s Yew at Congresbury;
and the beech tree that grafted to it
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