Osorio Gutiérrez

Saint Osorio Gutiérrez, called the Holy Count, was count of Vilanova de Mondoñedo and, withdrawn from the world, a Benedictine monk. He was born in Tierra de Campos in the kingdom of León in the first half of the 10th century and died at the monastery of San Salvador de Lourenzá (Lugo) toward the end of the century. He was the son of Count Gutierre Osorio and Aldonza, related to the royal house of Asturias and to Saint Rudesind of Celanova. He received a fine education. He helped the kings Ordoño III, Sancho the Fat and Ramiro III in their campaigns against the Muslims and was at the battle of Simancas. At the death of his father and of his uncle Ordoño, who had no children, he inherited numerous properties in Galicia, where he went to live. He married his cousin Urraca Núñez Osorio, with whom he had two sons and a daughter.

Left a widower and very rich, he devoted himself more and more to prayer and charity and decided to follow the monastic life. He had the monastery of San Salvador de Lorenzana rebuilt; by a deed of 969 he gave the monastery revenues and goods from other nearby monasteries, enriching it. Eight years later, when the restoration work was finished, he entered it as a Benedictine monk, in 977. He led an exemplary life there. Very old, he made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land with six companions, embarking at A Coruña. A year later he returned and died soon after, toward the end of the 10th century. He was buried in the chapel of Santa María de Valdeflores, built next to the church of the monastery, in a paleo-⁠Christian sarcophagus of the 3rd century, with a carved chrismon and a lid of the 5th century, probably bought in the south of France. A popular legend says that, arriving at Jaffa on his pilgrimage, he found three Moors carving a sarcophagus and bought it from them for 300 gold shekels.

Popular veneration began from the moment of his death; it was kept up by the Benedictines and authorized by the bishops of Mondoñedo. Every year on 30 August a pilgrimage was held at the monastery, where people drew water from the Holy Well. The diocese prepared the file to send to Rome to request the canonization of the count, but the confiscation of 1835 stopped it. He is venerated by the faithful, with a local cult, without canonization.