Saint of the Day – 1 July – Saint Fleuret of Estaing (Died c621) Bishop

Saint of the Day – 1 July – Saint Fleuret of Estaing (Died c621) Bishop of Auvergne, France , Miracle-worker. Patronages – the blind, those with eye ailments, the lame and crippled, Estaing (modern Aveyron), France. Also known as – Fleuret of Auvergne.

The only known medieval narrative about our Saint is in the Estaing Breviary which says he was the Bishop of Auvergne, the Province north of Rouergue.

The local Abbot was returning with our Bishop from a Synod in Rome and invited him to stay in the village for a while. During this sojourn, a blind man was cured by washing his eyes in water which Fleuret had used and a lame man was enabled to walk, when the Saint gave him a piece of bread.

Local tradition summarised in literature at the Parish Church, has it that he converted the village to Christ by his preaching.

The people were amazed and encouraged the Bishop to extend his stay. He did,but after two weeks he took ill and died.

St Fleuret’s Procession in Estaing:
According to tradition, St Fleuret, regional Bishop of Auvergne, stopped off at Estaing where he died in 621. St Fleuret’s cult has been attested since the 15th Century. In the 17th and 18th Centuries.

The festival was the occasion for the election of a youth king and a queen. This became more profane than religious, and was condemned by the Church. The Festival was restored in the 19th Century in the form that we now celebrate it as a symbolic, historical and religious tribute.

Every first Sunday of July the Procession of Saint Fleuret takes place. A parade representing Saints of Paradise, members of the Ecclesiastical hierarchy, Angels, Archangels, faithful of the old brotherhoods, pilgrims and the most illustrious characters of the Estaing family… accompanied by the clergy and the civil Officials.

They venerate the Relics and the bust in gilded wood of St Fleuret which are carried all along the roads under the triumphal canopy and visiting St Fleuret’s miraculous spring (see below).