Saint Credan of Evesham (died 19 August 780) is a

saint In Christianity, Christian belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of sanctification in Christianity, holiness, imitation of God, likeness, or closeness to God in Christianity, God. However, the use of the ...

in the calendar of the

Roman Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

and of the

Eastern Orthodox Church The Eastern Orthodox Church, officially the Orthodox Catholic Church, and also called the Greek Orthodox Church or simply the Orthodox Church, is List of Christian denominations by number of members, one of the three major doctrinal and ...

. He is also known in Latin as Credus or Credanus.

Life and cult

Credan was the

Abbot Abbot is an ecclesiastical title given to the head of an independent monastery for men in various Western Christian traditions. The name is derived from ''abba'', the Aramaic form of the Hebrew ''ab'', and means "father". The female equivale ...

of the

Benedictine The Benedictines, officially the Order of Saint Benedict (, abbreviated as O.S.B. or OSB), are a mainly contemplative monastic order of the Catholic Church for men and for women who follow the Rule of Saint Benedict. Initiated in 529, th ...

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 Christians, Christian monks and nun ...

at Evesham,

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

, during the reign of King Offa of

Mercia Mercia (, was one of the principal kingdoms founded at the end of Sub-Roman Britain; the area was settled by Anglo-Saxons in an era called the Heptarchy. It was centred on the River Trent and its tributaries, in a region now known as the Midlan ...

. His office is attested by charters in King Offa's reign, but no details of Credan's life have been preserved. Relics of St Credan at Evesham Abbey were put through an ordeal by fire in 1077, apparently because of Norman suspicion of this local saint, about whom little was known. The ordeal was conducted by the new Norman abbot, Walter de Cerisy, who, after consultation with Archbishop Lanfranc, ordered a three-day fast, and had the seven penitential psalms and appropriate litanies chanted while the sanctity of the bones was tested by fire. According to legend, the relics not only survived but shone like gold when moved to a place of devotion. This may, however, be a confusion with a similar account of the uncovering of St Credan's bones by Abbot Mannig when his cult was originally developed. It is said that Mannig "was frequently admonished in vision to take up the holy Abbot's relics and lay them in a shrine. When at length he came with great solemnity to do this, the body was found between two others, but distinguished from them by the great brightness with which it shone." The shrine established for St Credan by Walter of Cerisy in 1277 was one of only three to survive the destruction of the Abbey sanctuary when the tower of Evesham fell in 1207, and this was also thought to be miraculous. Credan's feast day in the Roman Catholic Church is 19 August, which was the day of his death in 780. It is celebrated in the Orthodox Church.

Cornwall

Credan is sometimes reputed to have founded the church of Sancreed in Cornwall, which is named for St. Credan, but there were other Cornish saints of this name whose names may have been confused with his. A more likely candidate is St. Credan of Cornwall, a follower of Saint Petroc. This is the St. Credan who is said to have accidentally killed his own father, by which he was so moved as to abandon the world and become a hogherd, and lived so exemplary as he was after esteemed a saint. His feast day is observed on 11 May. The Cornish Ancient Sites Protection Network (CASPN) considers Credan of Cornwall to be "mythological".

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Credan 780 deaths 8th-century Christian abbots 8th-century English people Abbots of Evesham Mercian saints Year of birth unknown Burials at Evesham Abbey