Saint Palladius

Saint Palladius , d. 431, first bishop of Ireland. Probably of Gallo-Roman origin, Palladius was sent (431) by Pope Celestine I to proselytize among the Irish. He built three churches but met with much opposition and left the same year. He is the forerunner of St. Patrick, who succeeded him in his work. Feast: July 7.

Palladius, St (5th cent.), first bishop of the Irish. According to Prosper of Aquitaine, as a deacon Palladius persuaded Celestine I (422–32) to send St Germanus, Bp. of Auxerre, to stamp out the Pelagian heresy in Britain, and was later himself sent to the Irish as their first bishop. Lives of St Patrick from the 7th cent. portray Palladius as an unsuccessful missionary who left the way open for Patrick; his career may perhaps have been subsumed within the legend of Patrick. Feast day, 7 July.

Palladius was, according to the contemporary chronicler Prosper, sent to the Irish by Pope Celestine as their first bishop in AD 431. As a deacon Palladius was responsible for inducing Celestine in 429 to appoint Germanus, bishop of Auxerre, as his representative in combating the Pelagian heresy in Britain. In the late 7th century, Muirchú, writing to glorify Armagh and Patrick, claimed that Palladius rapidly gave up his mission and soon died. This is rendered improbable by two pieces of evidence. About 434 Prosper wrote in his Contra Collatorem that Celestine ‘having ordained a bishop for the Irish, while he labours to keep the Roman island [Britain] catholic, has also made the barbarian island [Ireland] Christian’. Palladius's achievements were probably still a matter for celebration in Rome in the 440s, when Leo cited the missionary achievements of the see of Peter beyond the Roman empire in a sermon delivered on the feast of S S Peter and Paul. The likelihood is, therefore, that Palladius came from an anti‐Pelagian group in Gaul, supported by Prosper and by Pope Celestine and centred around Germanus of Auxerre; that he made significant progress in a mission to the Irish, perhaps centred in Leinster, the area of Ireland most open to Roman influence; and that his achievements were stolen by Patrician hagiographers. Whether he belonged to the Palladii mentioned by Sidonius Apollinaris is uncertain.

Thomas M. Charles‐Edwards