Helier

Saint Helier was a hermit on the island of Jersey in the Channel Islands, slain by sea raiders around 555. He is patron of Jersey, and in particular of the town and parish of Saint Helier, its capital, and he is invoked against diseases of the skin and eyes.

According to the legend, he was born at Tongeren, in present-⁠day Belgium, to pagan parents: his father Sigebert, a Frankish nobleman and governor, and his mother Lusigard. Since they had no child, they sought the advice of a Christian teacher, Cunibert, who told them to pray to God and to hand over the child that would be born, and he would raise it in the faith. Their prayer was heard, but when the father grew angry at Cunibert's influence on the boy, who was already working miracles, he killed the teacher, and Helier fled.

His wanderings led him to the Cotentin, to the community of Saint Marculf at Nantus. Marculf had received pleas from the few inhabitants of the island then called Gersut or Agna, now Jersey, almost depopulated by repeated pirate attacks, who asked for someone to bring them the Gospel. He sent Helier with Romard, and Helier settled on a tidal rock, now the Hermitage Rock, next to the islet where Elizabeth Castle stands. From there he could see the sails of the attackers and signal to the shore, and the inhabitants would scatter into the marshes. Small dark clouds on the horizon are still called in the Jèrriais tongue "the sails of Saint Helier".

Helier remained at his hermitage for about fifteen years in fasting and prayer. Tradition records one healing worked by him, of a lame man named Anquetil. Around 555 pirates beheaded him with an axe, which is why the parish crest bears crossed axes. He is commemorated on 16 July as a saint of the undivided Church, by the New Calendar.