Walfroy the Stylite

Saint Walfroy the Stylite (Wulflaich in Latin) was a Lombard deacon who lived in Gaul in the 6th century, the only known stylite north of the Alps. He died around 594 or 600, on 21 October, according to one source. He is venerated locally as the apostle of the Ardennes and remembered on 21 October and 17 November.

His life is known from the History of the Franks of Gregory of Tours, who met him at Yvois and accompanied him to the monastery he had built on a hill. Wulflaich himself told of his conversion: a disciple of Abbot Aredius of Limoges, he went with him to the tomb of Saint Martin at Tours. The abbot took dust from the tomb in a capsule as a relic; when the capsule was put in a box, the box filled with dust. The miracle decided him to found a monastery near Trier. Finding that the local people still worshipped the goddess Diana (in the Ardennes, the goddess Arduinna), he set up a pillar and stood on it with bare feet. In winter, he said, he froze, and the rain turned to ice in his beard.

His preaching bore fruit: the inhabitants pulled down the statue of the goddess with ropes and broke it with hammers. The bishops of the region, however, ordered him to come down from the pillar, saying that he could not compare himself to Saint Simeon the Stylite of Antioch and that the climate did not allow such torment. Though he disagreed, he obeyed, and the bishops destroyed the pillar. He settled for good in the country of Yvois, around 585. His tomb is on Mont Saint-⁠Walfroy near Margut, where a pilgrimage still draws the faithful.