Eusebius of Rankweil

Holy Martyr Eusebius of Rankweil, also called Eusebius of Viktorsberg, was an Irish monk and hermit, born at the beginning of the 9th century in Ireland and dead on 31 January 884 on the Viktorsberg. His relics are venerated at St. Gallen.

He came as an Irish pilgrim to St. Gallen, where he entered the monastery. Later he withdrew and lived for thirty years as a hermit on the Vogelsberg, now called Viktorsberg, near Rankweil. It is said he reached such perfection that he received the gift of visions and of prophecy. The chronicler Ratpert of St. Gallen mentions that Eusebius urged Charles the Fat to give the mountain to the monastery of St. Gallen, which is also documented. Ekkehard IV of St. Gallen relates that Eusebius prophesied to the mother of Iso, before his birth, that her son would be, as a monk of the monastery, a famous scholar.

The legend, reported in 1640 by the Jesuit Daniel Feldner of Constance, says that one Sunday Eusebius rebuked a villager who was working, and the man at once cut off his head with a sickle. Eusebius took his head in his hands and went back to his cell on the Viktorsberg, where he was thereafter venerated by the local people. His relics were moved in 1786 to St. Gallen, where they have rested since. The parish church at Brederis, a district of Rankweil, built in 1959, bears his name. He is honored as a saint of the undivided Church, in the local tradition.