Gurval

Holy Hierarch Gurval was, according to Breton tradition, the second bishop of Aleth (today Saint-⁠Malo), successor of Saint Malo, and he reposed on 6 June 628. He was born in the British Isles, like Malo, was a disciple of Saint Brendan, and after him became abbot-⁠bishop of the monastery Brendan had founded. He was consecrated bishop of Aleth at the end of 566, but held the see only sixteen months, until the beginning of 569.

He withdrew to live alone in a hermitage in the Porhoët region, where the town of Guer later arose. From there he moved further south to an island of the lagoon of Etel, calling it the hermitage of Goual (today Locoal, in Morbihan), but 180 monks gathered around him. Longing for quiet, he left them and lived as a hermit in the forest of Camors, where he founded Locoal-⁠des-⁠Bois. His relics were taken to Guer (or, according to Guillotin de Corson, to the island of Locoal), and in the 9th century, in the time of the Viking invasions, to the abbey of Saint-⁠Pierre at Mont-⁠Blandin near Ghent in Belgium. Part of them later returned to Guer. In the "great abbey near Guer" a Romanesque chapel is said to mark the site of his hermitage. In the 19th century the rector of Locoal discovered his tomb of the 9th century. He is commemorated on 6 June, the day of his death. Many identify him with Gudwal, a bishop from Wales who founded monasteries in Devon and Cornwall and whose relics are venerated at Ghent.

The existence of Saint Gurval has been questioned by Michel Debary, who sees in him an invention of the clergy of Saint-⁠Malo in the 15th century, meant to remove the parish of Guer from the short-⁠lived diocese of Redon. He is honored as a saint of the undivided Church.