FRIDOLIN, Saint. – Abbot of Säckingen, apostle of Germany in the Merovingian era (8th century). His Irish origin is now contested. He rebuilt at Poitiers the monastery and church of St Hilary, restoring the relics of the Saint to honour, and became abbot of the restored monastery. St Hilary appeared to him in a dream and urged him to bring the faith to Säckingen.
His wanderings, marked by numerous monasteries founded in his wake, took him to Eller on the Vosges, to Alsace, to Basel, to Constance, and elsewhere. With the support of the King of France (perhaps Clovis II) he founded the female monastery of Säckingen, an island in the Rhine, and there erected a church in honour of St Hilary. His cult is popular in Alsace, Switzerland and Baden. The Roman Martyrology commemorates him on 6 March.
BHL.: A Life by the monk Balthier of the 10th century in MGH, Scriptores rer. Merov., III, p. 330; Acta SS. Martii, I, Paris 1865, pp. 430 sq. C. Benziger, Die Fridolinslegende, Strasbourg 1913; J. Levy, Die Wallfahrte der Heiligen im Elsass, ibid. 1926, pp. 234-35; A. M. Burg, Hist. de l'Église d'Alsace, Colmar 1945, pp. 34, 36; M. Barth, Zur Mission des Hl. Fridolin, in Archives de l'Église d'Alsace, 1 (1946), pp. 21-26.