Goeric of Metz

Saint Goeric (Gury, Abbo I) was bishop of Metz in the first half of the seventh century. He died around 643 and is venerated as a saint in both the Orthodox and the Roman Catholic Churches. His memory is kept on 19 September.

He is thought to have been born between 565 and 575, into a noble family of the Albi region related to the ancestors of the Arnulfings. Some Lives call him the son of Gamard, brother of the senator Ansbert and grandson of the senator Tonantius Ferreolus. He was married and had two daughters, Precia and Victorina. In youth he is said to have been a soldier and then an administrator at Albi. Later he went blind and recovered his sight, according to one tradition through a stone that had touched the blood of Saint Stephen, according to another on a pilgrimage to the church of Saint Stephen in Metz, where Saint Arnulf was bishop.

He then entered the clergy, was ordained priest by Saint Arnulf, and in 627 (other sources say 625, 628 or 629) succeeded him on the see of Metz. As bishop he moved in 641 the relics of his predecessor Arnulf into the church of the Holy Apostles at Metz. He built the church of Great Saint Peter and the monastery at Épinal for his two daughters. He was a close friend of King Dagobert I, and under the name Abbo he appears in the king's will of 636. Several letters he exchanged with Desiderius, bishop of Cahors, survive.

He died in 643, according to other sources in 642, 644 or even 647. In the tenth century his relics, except the head, were brought from the abbey of Saint-⁠Symphorien to Épinal, and this translation is commemorated in the local calendar on 15 April. The saint is patron of the city of Épinal, an important pilgrimage place in the Middle Ages. A painting of 1725, kept in the basilica of Saint-⁠Maurice at Épinal, shows him with his two daughters.