Dubricius

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Saint Dubricius
Saint Dubricius depicted in stained glass with an archiepiscopal cross
Archbishop
Born	465(?), Madley, near Hereford, Herefordshire, England[1]
Died	550 or 612, Bardsey Island, Wales[1]
Feast	14 November
Attributes	holding two croziers and an archiepiscopal cross[2]
Saints Portal

Saint Dubricius (also known in his native Welsh as Dyfrig and in corrupt Norman-French as Devereux) was the 6th century evangelist of Ergyng (now Archenfield) and much of South-East Wales.

Dubricius was the illegitimate son of Efrddyl, the daughter of King Peibio Clafrog of Ergyng (modern West Herefordshire in England). His grandfather threw his mother into the River Wye when he discovered she was pregnant, but was unsuccessful in drowning her. Dubricius was born in Madley. He and his mother were reconciled with Peibio when Dubricius kissed him and cured him of his leprosy.

Dubricius founded a monastery at Hentland and then one at Moccas. He became the teacher of many well-known Welsh saints, including Teilo and Samson. Dedications at Porlock and near Luscombe on the Exmoor coast of Somerset may indicate that he also travelled in that area. He later became Bishop of Ergyng, possibly with his seat at Weston under Penyard, and probably held sway over all of Glamorgan and Gwent, an area that was later known as the diocese of Llandaff. However, he may have merely been a bishop for the purpose of ordaining priests, not as administrative head of the church over a geographical area. Dubricius was good friends with Saints Illtud and Samson, and attended the Synod of Llanddewi Brefi in 545, where he is said to have resigned his see in favour of Saint David. He retired to Bardsey where he was eventually buried before his body was transferred to Llandaff Cathedral in 1120.

According to legend, Dubricius was made Archbishop of Wales from Caerleon by Saint Germanus of Auxerre, and later crowned King Arthur. He appears as a character in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, and, much later, in Alfred, Lord Tennyson's Idylls of the King. Arthurian scholar Norma Lorre Goodrich, in her book Merlin, controversially claims that Saint Dubricius and Merlin were the same person, Merlinus Ambrosius Dubricius, who was born in 450, and died in 536.

Churches dedicated to St. Dubricius include the Church of England church in Ballingham, Herefordshire and Llanvaches,a Church in Wales near Newport,The Catholic Church at Treforest is also dedicated to Dyfrig. It should be remembered that Dyfrig was a canonised Welsh Saint and that modern day Monmouthshire, Glamorgan and Dyfrig's part of Herefordshire once formed part of the ancient kingdom of Gwent, which is why Hereford still comes under the jurisdiction of the Catholic Archdiocese of Cardiff.The Catholic Belmont Abbey was originally to be the Cathedral for Newport.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• "St. Dubric". Catholic Encyclopedia. (1913). New York: Robert Appleton Company.