Theudere of Dauphiné

Saint Theudere of Dauphiné (also Theuderius, Theudère of Vienne, Theodore, Chef), a venerable father, was a monk, abbot and hermit who died around 575. He is venerated as a saint in the Western Church and remembered on 29 October in the diocese of Grenoble-⁠Vienne.

He was born in the 6th century (according to tradition, around 500) at Arcisse, near the present Saint-⁠Chef in Dauphiné. He wished to enter the monastery of Lérins as a monk, but Saint Caesarius of Arles ordained him priest. He returned to Vienne, where disciples gathered around him, and founded at least one monastery for them; at Arcisse he was founding abbot of a monastery around which a small town grew. He spent the last twelve years of his life in a walled-⁠up cell in the church of Saint Lawrence at Vienne, where he died around 575. He was known as a miracle worker.

His relics were greatly venerated. The village of Saint-⁠Chef was anciently called Saint-⁠Theudère; its present name comes, according to tradition, from the head (caput, chef) of the saint kept there, though another tradition says it was the head of Saint Theobald, archbishop of Vienne in the 10th century.