Froilan

Saint Froilán (also spelled Froilan; Spanish San Froilán) was a Galician hermit, missionary preacher, and bishop of León who lived in the Kingdom of Asturias in the later ninth and early tenth centuries. Traditional accounts place his birth in Lugo, in Galicia, in 833. From an early age he was drawn to prayer and solitude. After priestly ordination he withdrew into the wilder districts of northwestern Iberia, living as a hermit, practicing austerity, and gaining a reputation for holiness and knowledge of the Scriptures.

In the course of that eremitical life he formed a close spiritual companionship with another priest-hermit, Saint Atilano (Attilanus). Together they left their cells to preach among the Christian populations of the Duero frontier, a contested borderland then being recovered and resettled under Alfonso III of Asturias. Their missions are associated with the evangelization and pastoral reorganization of those territories. Later tradition presents them as itinerant preachers whose example attracted disciples and whose counsel was sought at the royal court.

In 900 King Alfonso III named Froilán bishop of León and Atilano bishop of Zamora. Froilán occupied the see of León for only about five years. As bishop he is remembered for pastoral zeal, for encouraging monastic life, and for helping restore church structures in a diocese disrupted by the wars and displacements of the eighth and ninth centuries. He died in León on 5 October 905 and was buried in the cathedral there, where his relics have continued to be venerated.

Devotion to him took root quickly in León and in his native Galicia. He is the principal patron of the city and diocese of León and is also honored in Lugo. A well-known legend, often depicted in Spanish art, relates that a wolf killed the donkey that carried the hermit’s books and provisions; Froilán then commanded the wolf to take the donkey’s place, and the animal thereafter accompanied him. His feast is kept on 5 October. Belonging to the early medieval period, he was never the subject of a later-style papal canonization; his cult is of immemorial standing.