Saint of the Day – 21 October – Saint Hugh of Ambronay (9th-10th Century) Abbot of Ambronay Abbey,in the Ddiocese of Belley, France. Also known as – Ugo, Hugo, Hugon, Hugues.
Hugh of Ambronay was an Abbot who lived between the 9th and 10th Centuries. Information regarding his life is scant and fragmentary.
However, tradition and local veneration make him a figure worthy of attention, offering food for thought on monastic life and the cult of Saints.
The main sources which tell us about Saint Hugh are the list of Abbots of Ambronay, present in the text ‘Gallia Christiana’, and the local calendar of Ambray. The first places him in third place, after Saint Berardand before Dulon, around 910. The second places his Feast Day on 21 October, while until the French Revolution, it was celebrated on 10 May.
The scarcity of biographical details has led some historians to doubt the existence of Saint Hugh I, hypothesizing that it could be a mistaken identification with a homonymous abbot of the 13th century. However, local tradition venerates him as a Saint and preserves the memory of his cult.
His Relics were preserved until violence of the Huguenot period and the only representation of the Saint is found in a 15th-Century stained glass window in the Parish Church of Ambray.
Saint Hugh I lived in a period of great religious and monastic fervour. The Abbey of Notre-Dame de Ambronay, which he led, was an important centre of culture and religion. His figure, reminds us of the fundamental role of Monasteries in the spread of Christianity and culture in Europe during the Middle Ages.
AnaStpaul 