Pelagius the Hermit

Pelagius the Hermit (in Spanish Pelayo, Paio or Pelagio) was a hermit who, according to tradition, lived in the year 813 at Solovio, in the Libredón forest, on the spot where the church of San Félix de Solovio stands today in Santiago de Compostela.

Tradition says that for several nights he saw strange lights over a mound in the forest, like a shower of stars. Moved by this, he went to Bishop Theodomir of Iria Flavia (present-⁠day Padrón) and told him what he had seen. The bishop came with a small company and saw the sight himself. In the thick of the forest they found a stone tomb with three bodies, which were recognized as those of the apostle James and his two disciples, Theodore and Athanasius.

The bishop judged the event a miracle and told King Alfonso II of Asturias, who ordered a chapel built. The place gradually became a great place of pilgrimage, and in 829 a first church was raised, followed by others.

The account is a late tradition of the finding of the tomb of Saint James; nothing else is known of Pelagius himself. He is a hermit of the West, honored as a saint in the Compostela tradition; no Orthodox synodal canonization is known, and the story is largely legendary.