Peter of Rates

Saint Peter of Rates (also called Peter of Braga) is regarded, according to tradition, as the first bishop of Braga, between the years 45 and 60, and a martyr. Tradition says that the holy Apostle James the Greater ordered him to preach the Christian faith, and Peter was killed while seeking to bring the natives of northern Portugal to the faith. The ancient Breviary of Braga and the Breviary of Évora call him a disciple of James, but the Bollandists say this is "purely traditional".

The old document says that James visited the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula in the year 44 and that he then ordained Peter at the Serra de Rates, in present-⁠day Póvoa de Varzim, as the first bishop of Braga. It is probably a myth, since it is known that in that year James kept Easter at Jerusalem. Peter is believed to have been beheaded while bringing pagans to the faith. An eighteenth-⁠century account says he was killed as he drank at the fountain of Balasar.

About the ninth century the discovery of his body was attributed to Felix the Hermit, a fisherman of Villa Mendo, who had seen a light on the hill by night. On that spot the Romanesque monastery of Rates was built, where the relics lay until 1552, when they were moved to Braga Cathedral; scientific studies suggest, however, that the body kept there is that of a child of the ninth century. In the parishes of Balasar and Rates two fountains are held to be miraculous; on his commemoration, 26 April, in some villages pregnant women and female animals do not work.