Hierarch
Hierarch Brioc (Brieuc) of Brittany
ок. 420 — †ок. 502
Also known as: Брие, Brieuc
Hierarch Brioc (Brieuc) of Brittany — a Welsh-born missionary monk, one of the seven founder saints of Brittany; he established a number of monasteries in Wales and Armorica (Brittany), including a community around which the town of Saint-Brieuc, named in his honor, later grew.
Hierarch Brioc was born around 420 to a noble Welsh (Celtic) family. Having taken monastic vows, he devoted his life to missionary preaching and the founding of monasteries — first in Wales, and then, crossing the sea, in Armorica (the Brittany peninsula in what is now northwestern France), to which many Celtic missionary monks were migrating from the British Isles at that time. The community he founded eventually grew into a town named in his honor, Saint-Brieuc, now the administrative center of the Côtes-d'Armor department. He is venerated as one of the seven patron saints of Brittany (alongside St. Malo, St. Samson of Dol, and others), in whose honor the traditional Tro Breizh pilgrimage was established. He died around 502. His memory is kept on May 1/14.