Meriadoc of Vannes

Saint Meriadoc of Vannes (in Breton Meriadeg, in French Mériadec) is honoured in Brittany as bishop of Vannes. The sources do not agree on his time: the Orthodox calendar describes him as born in Wales, a hermit and then bishop of Vannes, who died around 886, while the Breton tradition places him in the seventh century, as the fourteenth bishop of Vannes, born in 628 near Carhaix. In Cornwall he is known as Meriasek.

According to the medieval Latin Life and the play Beunans Meriasek, he descended from the legendary Breton king Conan Meriadec. Ordained priest against his family's wish, he is said to have worked several miraculous healings before crossing the Channel to Cornwall. There, having reached Camborne, he was forced by the persecution of the pagan chieftain Teudar to return to Brittany. Landing at Plougasnou, he tamed a wolf that terrorised the district. The fame of his miracles drew crowds, so that he withdrew near Pontivy, a thousand paces from the castle of Rohan. The viscount of Rohan, learning of his return, sought him out; the saint built his hermitage on the site of the church of Stival, near Pontivy, where his hand-⁠bell can still be seen. According to tradition, his sarcophagus lies in the cemetery of Noyal-⁠Pontivy.

He is commemorated on 7 June as a saint of the West before the Great Schism (a saint of the undivided Church), by the New Calendar.