Meinolf

The righteous Meinolf was an archdeacon of the Roman Catholic Church at Paderborn in Germany and the founder of the Böddeken monastery near Paderborn. He was born around 795 and died on 5 October 857 at Böddeken. He is venerated in the Roman Catholic Church, in the regional calendar of Paderborn, and his commemoration is on 5 October, the day of his death. He is not in the Orthodox calendar, and our sources record only Catholic veneration.

The name Meinolf comes from Old High German and means strong as a wolf. He came of a noble family, and his godfather was Charlemagne. Under the guidance of Bishop Hathumar he studied at the cathedral school of Paderborn and was then received into the cathedral chapter. He was ordained deacon and became archdeacon of the diocese of Paderborn in 836. In the same year he led the delegation of Paderborn that brought the relics of Saint Liborius from Le Mans. On the occasion of this translation the two dioceses, Paderborn and Le Mans, tied a bond of eternal brotherhood, which endures to this day.

In 837 Meinolf founded the convent of Böddeken near Büren, a place that now belongs to the Wewelsburg district of the town of Büren. According to tradition, the convent was built on the spot where a stag with a cross between its antlers appeared to Meinolf. He died on 5 October 857 at Böddeken. His relics were taken to Paderborn in 1803 and are kept in the Busdorf church.

He is the oldest saint of the Büren region. After the convent declined in the fourteenth century, the historian and church reformer Gobelinus Person reformed it and in 1409 gave it to the Augustinian canons of Zwolle. Böddeken became one of the largest monasteries in Germany. The veneration of the saint flourished again, helped also by the Life of Saint Meinolf written by Gobelinus Person.

The saint is shown with a stag at his feet bearing a cross between its antlers, and he holds a model of the Böddeken monastery in his hands. Several churches bear his name, among them those at Bielefeld, Paderborn, Dortmund-⁠Wambel and Delbrück, as well as a chapel in the Teutoburg Forest.