Germanus of Man

Saint Germanus of Man, also called Germanus of Peel, was the first bishop of the Isle of Man, born in Brittany (Armorica) about 410 and dead about 474, in the part of Armorica where Normandy later arose. He is a saint of the undivided Church of the British Isles, honoured by Catholics and, in Orthodoxy, entered in the synaxis of the British and Irish saints. He is remembered on 3 July.

Life

He was born in Brittany at the beginning of the fifth century and went to Ireland to study under Saint Patrick, who may have been his uncle. Later he spent some time in the abbey of Saint Illtud in southern Wales, then returned to Ireland, where he was ordained bishop by Patrick and sent to the Isle of Man. He is thought to have died in 474 in Armorica, in the part where Normandy later appeared.

In 2012, in a field in the north of the Isle of Man, a bishop's seal was found buried, with the inscription: "Let the prayers to God of Germanus and Patricius help us". This directly links the names of the two saints as founders of Christianity in Ireland and on the Isle of Man, which is historically bound to it.

Veneration

Saint Germanus is remembered on 3 July, but at Peel, the chief town of the island, his day is kept on 13 July. The difference probably comes from keeping the old Julian date after the switch to the Gregorian calendar, when the difference was ten days. The cathedrals of Peel are dedicated to him: the old one, abandoned in the eighteenth century and left in ruins, and the new one, built on another site between 1879 and 1884.

Despite his great merits toward the Church, his veneration is not very widespread. The confusion that arose later with Patrick's teacher, Saint Germanus of Auxerre, remembered on 31 July, may have contributed, and the day of Saint Germanus of Man is sometimes wrongly kept on 31 July too. Some identify both saints, Germanus of Auxerre and Germanus of Man, with the Welsh saint Garmon, although scholars of the early twentieth century, Baring-⁠Gould and Fisher, identified him more reasonably with Germanus of Man.