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Witnessing to Christ by the way of life, not by death.

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March 1 · Confessor

St. Monan

St. Monan, Archdeacon

Witnessing to Christ by the way of life, not by death.

Traditional feast

March 1
1914 / pre-1969 calendar, per Baring-Gould (1897)

Current feast

Not verified yet

Represents

Confessor

Their story

Adapted in modern English from Alban Butler's Lives of the Saints · Baring-Gould original below · little is known

St Adrian, Bishop of St Andrew's, trained Monan from childhood, ordained him priest and long employed him in his own church. He then sent him to preach on the Isle of May in the Firth of Forth, where Monan put down superstition and set the churches in good order.

Monan then went into Fife, where he was killed with more than 6,000 other Christians by an invading pagan army in 874. His relics at Innerny became famous for miracles, and King David II, who had himself felt the power of his prayers, rebuilt his church in stone and founded a college of canons there.

Early life

Selected sentences from the original account, unaltered.

Thin entry · the 1897 book gives only 114 words. We have not filled the gap with invented detail.

S. Adrian, bishop of S. Andrews, trained the holy man from his childhood, and appointed him to be his archdeacon.

What they represent

How they teach us to live

Drawn from themes in the original account

Share your faith, in words and by example. Preaching and conversion are central here.

Build up the community you belong to. This life was lived with and for a community.

Learn from the kind of life it was. Witnessing to Christ by the way of life, not by death.

Read more

The full original · 114 words

Read Baring-Gould’s full account

Baring-Gould’s sources: Aberdeen Breviary.

S. Adrian, bishop of S. Andrews, trained the holy man from his childhood, and appointed him to be his archdeacon. He afterwards sent him to preach the Gospel in the island of May, at the mouth of the Frith of Forth; he then went into Fife. The Church suffered severely from the incursions of the Northmen who ravaged the coasts, burning churches and monasteries, robbing them of their sacred vessels, and carrying off the unfortunate people captive. S. Monan is said by Butler to have been martyred by these invaders, but this is inaccurate. There is no evidence that he died any other than a peaceful death. He was buried at Inverny.

March 1.

Feast days

Feast: March 1

Nine days · Free

Pray the novena
with us.

One short email a day for nine days. The day's prayer, a line from St. Monan's story, and a nudge to keep going.

Also on March 1
St. Hesychius

St. Hesychius

March 1 · Bishop, Martyr
St. Eudocia

St. Eudocia

March 1 · Martyr
St. Antonina

St. Antonina

March 1 · Martyr
← All 1726 saints in the library
Sources & notes

Feast-day sources

Story sources

Sources

Credits

From Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, new edition in 16 vols. (London: John C. Nimmo, 1897), digitized text from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.

From Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, new edition in 16 vols. (London: John C. Nimmo, 1897), digitized text from Project Gutenberg. Public domain in the United States. Reproduced unedited, except for short bracketed notes in grey that we added to explain names and terms (“S.” is the old abbreviation for Saint). Some history and judgments reflect 19th-century scholarship.