Wiro

Holy Hierarch Wiro is counted among the missionaries of the Low Countries in the eighth century. According to tradition he was born in Northumbria in England and was associated with Saint Willibrord; some sources make him bishop of Utrecht. He preached in the Meuse and Rhine region, and legend links him with the priest Plechelm and the deacon Otger. With Otger he founded, on land given by Pippin II, the abbey of Saint Peter at Odilienberg near Roermond in the Netherlands. The year of his repose is uncertain: sources give between 700 and 753 (our record has 730). He is buried at Sint Odilienberg; the monastery moved to Roermond in 1361 with his relics, which were lost in the Reformation and rediscovered in the sixteenth century. His skull has been kept in Utrecht, whose bishopric took him as patron. He is remembered on 8 May, and at Roermond on 11 May.