FINNEN (FINNAN), Saint. — Benedictine, born in Leinster (Ireland) at the beginning of the 9th century, died at Reheiau in 878. Taken in a Viking raid and carried off to the Orkneys as a slave, he managed to escape and take refuge under the protection of a bishop in Scotland.
After a pilgrimage to Rome, he became a Benedictine in the abbey of Farfa, whence he passed to the monastery of Rheinau in the Black Forest. The last twenty-two years of his life he spent in complete solitude. His relics, preserved at Rheinau, were burned, except for his head, in 1529. Feast day: November 15.
BIBL.: J. Mabillon, Acta SS. Ordinis S. Benedicti, IV, 1. Paris 1726, pp. 356-60; MGH, Scriptores, XV (1888), pp. 503-506.