St. Ethbin

Ethbin was a Briton whom Butler places among the disciples of St. Samson, bishop of Dol. Sent to Brittany while young, he received an education directed toward the service of God. He was already a deacon when a passage of the Gospel about renouncing possessions moved him to seek a more secluded religious life.

With Samson’s permission he entered the community of Taurac. There he placed himself under the guidance of a monk named Guignole or Winwaloe. Butler is careful to distinguish this monk from the better-known St. Winwaloe, abbot of Landévennec. When warfare scattered the community, Ethbin’s life took another course: after the death of his guide he crossed to Ireland.

Butler relates that Ethbin lived for twenty years in a cell in an Irish forest, practising an austere life of prayer. He places his death toward the close of the sixth century and identifies October 19 as the day on which his name occurs in the Roman Martyrology. The short notice preserves the course of a vocation carried through education, community life, displacement, and retirement.