Deicolus (also Déicole, Dichuil, Deel, Deicola, Deicuil, Delle, Desle, Dichul, Dicuil, Domgall; c. 530 – January 18, 625) is venerated as a saint by both the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

and the Orthodox Church as an East–West Schism, pre-Schism, Western saint. He was an elder brother of Saint Gall.

Life

Born in

Leinster Leinster ( ; ga, Laighin or ) is one of the provinces of Ireland, situated in the southeast and east of Ireland. The province comprises the ancient Kingdoms of Meath, Leinster and Osraige. Following the 12th-century Norman invasion of Ir ...

, Deicolus and his brother, Gall, studied at Bangor Abbey in County Down. He was selected to be one of the twelve followers to accompany

Columbanus Columbanus ( ga, Columbán; 543 – 21 November 615) was an Irish missionary notable for founding a number of monasteries after 590 in the Frankish and Lombard kingdoms, most notably Luxeuil Abbey in present-day France and Bobbio Abbey in pr ...

on his missionary journey. After a short stay in

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in 576 he journeyed to

Gaul Gaul ( la, Gallia) was a region of Western Europe first described by the Romans. It was inhabited by Celtic and Aquitani tribes, encompassing present-day France, Belgium, Luxembourg, most of Switzerland, parts of Northern Italy (only during ...

and laboured with Columbanus in

Austrasia Austrasia was a territory which formed the north-eastern section of the Merovingian Kingdom of the Franks during the 6th to 8th centuries. It was centred on the Meuse, Middle Rhine and the Moselle rivers, and was the original territory of the F ...

and

Burgundy Burgundy (; french: link=no, Bourgogne ) is a historical territory and former administrative region and province of east-central France. The province was once home to the Dukes of Burgundy from the early 11th until the late 15th century. The c ...

. When Columbanus was expelled by Theuderic II, in 610, Deicolus, then eighty years of age, determined to follow his master, but was forced, after a short time, to give up the journey, and remained behind alone, establishing a hermitage at a nearby church dedicated to Saint Martin in a place called Lutre, or Lure, in the

Diocese of Besançon In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associat ...

, to which he had been directed by a

swineherd A swineherd is a person who raises and herds pigs as livestock. Swineherds in literature * In the New Testament are mentioned shepherd of pigs, mentioned in the Pig (Gadarene) the story shows Jesus exorcising a demon or demons from a man and a ...

. Until his death, he became the apostle of this district, where he was given a church and a tract of land by Berthelde, widow of Weifar, the lord of Lure. Soon a noble

abbey An abbey is a type of monastery used by members of a religious order under the governance of an abbot or abbess. Abbeys provide a complex of buildings and land for religious activities, work, and housing of Christian monks and nuns. The conce ...

was erected for his many disciples, and the Rule of St. Columbanus was adopted. Numerous miracles are recorded of Deicolus, including the suspension of his cloak on a

sunbeam A sunbeam, in meteorological optics, is a beam of sunlight that appears to radiate from the position of the Sun. Shining through openings in clouds or between other objects such as mountains and buildings, these beams of particle-scattered sunl ...

and the taming of wild beasts. Clothaire II, King of Burgundy, recognised the virtues of Deicolus and considerably enriched the Abbey of Lure, also granting Deicolus the manor, woods, fisheries, etc., of the town which had grown around the monastery.Butler, Alban. ''The Lives of the Saints'', Volume I, 1866
/ref> Feeling his end approaching, Deicolus gave over the government of his abbey to Columbanus, one of his young monks, and retreated to a little oratory where he died on 18 January, about 625.Ó Riain-Raedel, Dagmar. ‘Deicolus (d. c.625)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004
/ref>

Veneration

His feast is celebrated on 18 January. So revered was his memory that his name (Dichuil), under the slightly disguised form of Deel and Deela, is still borne by most of the children of the Lure district. His ''Acts'' were written by a monk of his own monastery in the tenth century. His cultus was strong in the area of Lure well into the nineteenth century, when children's clothes were washed in a spring associated with Deicolus that was reputed to cure childhood illnesses.

References

External links

Saint of the Day, January 18: ''Deicolus''
at ''SaintPatrickDC.org''
Hall, Grace. "St. Deicolus and the Wild Boar", ''Stories of the Saints'', The Baldwin Project
{{authority control 530 births 625 deaths 7th-century Frankish saints French hermits Irish hermits Medieval Irish saints 6th-century Irish priests Irish expatriates in France Irish expatriates in Italy Colombanian saints