Saint Justinian’s Chapel, St Justinian, Dyfed
Today in the Orthodox Church we venerate Saint Stinan, another holy man from Wales’s Age of Saints. A Breton hermit who lived on Ramsey Island, he was more renowned for being the starets or spiritual father of Saint Dewi of Wales.
Stinan [alternatively called Iestyn in Welsh, Justinian in English or Jestin in Breton] was born to a noble Breton family and given a sound education in the liberal arts by his parents. He was apparently took to this education so well that he soon became renowned among the Bretons for the profundity of his learning. He was ordained a priest and served dutifully among his countrymen in Armorica for some years.
At the urgings of a command from on high, telling him to go out from his land and his kindred, he left his home at an early age, placed himself in a boat made from scraped hides, and committed himself to God’s protection. He took up a life of solitude, taking up the hermit’s cross and seeking to fight his spiritual battles in the wilderness of his island off the coast of Dyfed, in the furthest southwest corner of Wales.
On Ramsey Island, he found a holy man named Honorius living there with his sister and her handmaiden. Honorius hosted Iestyn with great warmness, and saw fit to give the island entirely to Saint Stinan. Stinan agreed, on the condition that Honorius’s sister and her handmaid leave the island, that their ascetic strivings might not be disturbed. Some unbelievers were said to have scoffed at this, but both Honorius and his sister saw the sincerity in Stinan’s request, and agreed to it. Honorius’s sister asked for, and got, Stinan’s blessing for herself and her maid before they departed.
Saint Stinan lived a life of exemplary holiness and strict asceticism. He was soon visited by Saint Dewi, who was then bishop in Dyfed, and who was apparently so impressed by Stinan’s way of life and his wisdom in answering profound spiritual questions that Dewi at once begged Stinan to be his confessor and spiritual father. Bishop Dewi also provided for Saint Stinan wherever he chose to travel.
It so happened that one day five men in a boat appeared in the channel between Ramsey Island and Dyfed, shouting up to Saint Stinan to be let near, for they bore grim news that ‘he whom you love is ill, and bids you hurry to his side’. Saint Stinan got into the boat with them, and began chanting Psalms. He looked around at them and saw that their faces were hiding some secret malicious glee; and then he understood that they were in fact devils. He began chanting Psalm 35, and by the time he reached the fourth verse (‘Let them be confounded and put to shame that seek after my soul!’) the devils and the boat both vanished, and Stinan found himself submerged in the midst of the waters. By the grace of God Stinan was lifted on the waves from the water and found himself washed up on a rock on the mainland; there he saw Saint Dewi standing before him alive and well, whom the devils had told him was ill.
The Evil One, who had been cheated of Saint Stinan’s soul by his prayers from the Psalter, still sought his life. He implanted in the souls of three brethren who had come with Saint Stinan the seeds of jealousy and restlessness. When Saint Stinan gently reproved these brethren, they rushed upon him with evil intent, took up axes and cut off his head. Having done this wicked deed, the murderous disciples were at once stricken with leprosy. They fled Ramsey Island and came, weeping and groaning, to ‘Lepers’ Rock’, where they spent many years in repentance. After many years their leprosy was cured, through the forgiveness of Saint Stinan who was murdered by them.
Where Saint Stinan’s head fell a fountain of most pure water gushed forth from the rock. This water had the power to heal even those who had ingested deadly poisons. One such man – a man named Jona whose stomach had turned ulcerous from having taken poison in milk – was brought to Stinan’s Well and made to drink some of the water; the man coughed up a living frog and his ulcers were cured.
Saint Stinan’s body, after his murderers had beheaded him, picked up his own head and walked with it from Ramsey Island, across the water to Llanstinan, three miles inland from Fishguard. There he lay down and was buried. On that spot, Saint Justinian’s Church still stands. Many wonders were wrought there, before Saint Dewi – having been told of the place in a vision – came to where Saint Stinan was buried. He brought his bones out of the ground and had him translated to his cathedral in St David’s. The bones of Saint Dewi and Saint Stinan can still be seen behind the altar in the Cathedral. Holy father Stinan, pray unto Christ our God that our souls may be saved!
Ramsey Island, Dyfed
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