Saint of the Day – 14 August – St Eberhard of Einsiedeln (c890-958) Priest, Abbot

Saint of the Day – 14 August – St Eberhard of Einsiedeln (c890-958) Priest, Abbot, Co-founder of the renowned Einsiedeln Abbey in Switzerland. with St Benno, an ex-Bishop of Metz in France and Eberhard’s relative. Eberhard of Einsiedeln was a Priest, Benedictine Monk and the first Abbot of Einsiedeln Abbey in Switzerland. He was born in Swabia, Germany in c890 and died at Einsiedeln in 958 of natural causes.

Born around the year 890 in Alsace, of the family of the Duke of Swabia, Fr Eberhard was named Provost of the Strasbourg Cathedral in France as a young man.

In 934, he left that position to join his kinsman Benno, who was living as a religious recluse at the former hermitage of St Meinrad, on Mount Etzel in the Swiss Alps, near Lake Zurich. There, Eberhard and Benno built a Monastery which he named Our Lady of Einsiedeln, or Our Lady of the Hermit, in honour of St Meinrad and the miraculous Statue of Holy Mother Mary, a black Madonna, which was kept there.

The Monastery was approved in 940,and Eberhard was named first Abbot in 947. The Abbey Church was completed in 948. Abbot Eberhard died at Einsiedeln on 14 August in the year 958, his feast day. He was interred in the Lady Chapel of the Abbey alongside his confrere St Benno. St Eberhard’s and St Benno’s Relics have been moved several times over the Centuries to protect them from wars and rebellions and are believed to now be back where they began, in the Abbey Church of Einsiedeln.

St Meinrad of Einsiedeln (Einsiedler means “Hermit” in German and the Abbey in Einsiedeln was built to honour St Meinrad, a Hermit who lived there) – his life here:
https://anastpaul.com/2021/01/21/saint-of-the-day-21-january-saint-meinrad-of-einsiedeln-osb-c-797-861-martyr/
St Benno’s Life here:
https://anastpaul.com/2023/08/03/saint-of-the-day-3-august-st-benno-of-einsiedeln-died-940-bishop/