Saint Martin of Braga

Saint Martin of Braga (in Latin Martinus Bracarensis, in Portuguese, known as Martinho de Dume c. 520–580 AD), also known as Saint Martin of Dumio, was an archbishop of Bracara Augusta in Gallaecia (now Braga in Portugal), a missionary, a monastic founder, and an ecclesiastical author. According to his contemporary, the historian Gregory of Tours, Martin was plenus virtutibus ("full of virtue") and in tantum se litteris imbuit ut nulli secundus sui temporis haberetur ("he so instructed himself in learning that he was considered second to none in his lifetime"). He was later canonized by the Catholic Church for his work in converting the inhabitants of Gallaecia to Chalcedonian Christianity, being granted the cognomen of "Apostle to the Suevi". His feast day is 20 March. Born in Pannonia, in Central Europe, Martin made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, where he became a monk. Around 550, he travelled by sea to Hispania and settled in Gallaecia. "His intentions in going to a place so remote by the standards of his own day are unknown," writes Roger Collins. Though some scholars have suggested that he was an agent of Byzantine diplomacy (owing to the coincidence between his date of travel and the beginnings of the Byzantine reconquest of parts of Visigothic south-eastern Hispania), and others have suggested he was sent to the Suevic court as a missionary, neither hypothesis is certain. Nonetheless, his arrival in Gallaecia was historically significant, for he played an important role in converting the Suevi from their current Arian beliefs to the Chalcedonian Christianity. While there he founded several monasteries, the best known of which was at Dumium (modern-day Dume), established close to the Suevic capital at Braga. He became bishop of this monastic bishopric and attended the First Council of Braga in 561 in this capacity.