Gerold of Walsertal

Saint Gerold of Walsertal was a hermit in Vorarlberg, in the western Alps, and died in the year 978 at Friesen, now Sankt Gerold, in Austria. He was born around 900 in Raetia and was of noble birth. The Catholic Church commemorates him on 19 April. In the Orthodox Church he is venerated only locally, on 2 May.

The sources say he was of ducal family, perhaps from Saxony, and that he left his wife and children to live as a hermit at Friesen. Later Count Otto of Jagdberg gave him a large piece of land for a dwelling and a hermitage. In 970 the saint gave the land and buildings to the nearby monastery of Einsiedeln.

In 1662 the saint's coffin was opened and the relics carried to Einsiedeln, but in 1663 they were brought back to Friesen, where they remain today in the monastery of Saint Gerold. They were found again in 1965 and 1966.

On icons he is usually shown praying in a large hollow tree, with a donkey beside him. He lived before the separation of East and West, but his Orthodox veneration is recent: with the blessing of Archbishop Feofan of Berlin and Germany, of the Moscow Patriarchate, Gerold is regarded as a local Orthodox saint and not one of the whole Church.