Helier

Saint Helier
Stained glass icon of Saint Helier in Liebfrauenbasilika, Tongeren
Born	unknown Tongeren (now in Belgium)
Died	555
Venerated in	Eastern Orthodox Church Roman Catholic Church Anglican Church
Feast	16 July

Saint Helier (died 555 AD) was a 6th-century ascetic hermit. He is the patron saint of Jersey in the Channel Islands, and in particular of the town and parish of Saint Helier, the island’s capital. He is also invoked as a healing saint for diseases of the skin and eyes.

According to hagiography, Hellerius or Helier was born to pagan parents in Tongeren (now in Belgium). His father was Sigebert, a nobleman from Tongres and his mother was Lusigard. Having had difficulties conceiving a child, they had turned to Saint Cunibert who had advised them to pray to God and that when they had a child they must hand him over to God, and that he, Cunebert, would bring him up in the Christian faith. Their prayers having been answered, Helier was born, but Helier’s father, the Saxon Governor of that place, eventually grew angry at the influence Cunibert exerted over his precocious son, who was already causing consternation with his youthful miracles. Helier’s father had Cunibert killed, whereupon Helier fled.

Helier’s wanderings led him through what is now the village of St. Hellier in the département of Seine-Maritime in Normandy and eventually to the Cotentin where he sought retreat from the distractions of the world in the monastic community of Saint Marculf at Nantus (Nanteuil, now St.-Marcouf-de-l’Isle in Manche).

Helier, however, found the monastic community did not provide the quiet he required to devote himself fully to a life of contemplation. Marculf had received pleas from the few inhabitants of the island called Gersut, or Agna, now called Jersey, which was all but depopulated due to repeated attacks by Vikings, or Saxons, or Vandals, depending on source. The inhabitants requested someone to help them, and bring the gospel to them as they had no shepherd to guide them.