Saint Pasqual de Tormellas

Pascual of Tormellas (Tormellas, c. 1080 – May 3, 1167) was a hermit and ecclesiastic venerated as a saint in the Catholic Church. His exact birth date is unknown, but his friendship with Saint Peter of Barco, a former fellow student, suggests it was around 1080. He studied in El Barco de Ávila and, pursuing an ecclesiastical career, perhaps also in Ávila. After completing his studies, he went on pilgrimages to various places in Europe and reached the Holy Land. He returned to Spain and landed in Seville, where he stayed for a time. Seeking a quieter place for a hermit's life, he settled near Olmedo (Valladolid), where he built the hermitage of the Holy Cross. Finally, around 1149, he returned to the Ribera Barcense, to his home in Tormellas, where he lived by cultivating a garden and fishing in the river. He then visited his former companion Peter of Barco, who had retired to a hermitage in El Barco. Tradition holds that the two decided to die in their respective villages and used two fallow deer to communicate. Peter died in 1155, and Pascual in 1167, being buried in the village church in an anthropomorphic stone sarcophagus.