Adam the Abbot

Adam the Abbot (Adamo Abate) was an Italian Benedictine abbot, born around 990 at Petazio (today Petacciato) and died on 3 May, in a year between 1060 and 1070 (by another source, 1072). He is remembered on 3 June, and at Guglionesi the feast lasts three days, from 2 to 4 June.

He was baptized at Guglionesi. Around the middle of the 11th century he became abbot of the monastery of Santa Maria a Mare on the island of San Nicola, in the Tremiti Islands, which he made a center of culture and of civil and religious renewal. At the Council of Melfi in 1059 he authoritatively defended the autonomy of the Tremiti monastery from the abbey of Montecassino. He is said to have promoted the unification of the peoples of southern Italy under King Roger II of Sicily; this report is, however, hard to reconcile with his time.

In June 1102, some thirty years after his death, his relics were stolen from the church of San Paolo in Petacciato and taken to Guglionesi, where he was proclaimed patron saint. The relics were placed in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore at Guglionesi, but were lost when the Turks burned the building down in the 16th century.

The date of his death is uncertain, between 1060 and 1072. He is a saint of the West, honored locally; no Orthodox synodal canonization is known.