Ollegario, Bishop of Barcelona, Saint

OLLEGARIO, Bishop of Barcelona, Saint. - Also called Oldegario and Olaguer, b. in Barcelona around the middle of the 11th century, d. there in 1137. Attached to the cathedral Chapter, he soon became its provost, but after a few years he entered the recently founded monastery of the Augustinian Canons Regular of S. Adriano del Besos, from which he moved around 1110 to the other one of S. Ruffo in Provence.

When the bishop of Barcelona, Raimondo, died in 1115 in the wars of Majorca, Count Raimondo Berenguer III presented him for that see, and he was confirmed bishop by Pope Paschal II. He is found in Rome in 1118, honored by Pope Gelasius II, from whom, as also from Count Raimondo, he received the charge of restoring the ancient see of Tarragona, destroyed in the Saracen invasions, which caused him immense labors and expenses. As archbishop of Tarragona, without leaving the episcopal see of Barcelona, he attended in 1119 the Council of Toulouse and of Reims, presided over by Pope Callistus II, the First Ecumenical Lateran Council of 1123 and that of Clermont in 1130.

Created pontifical legate in Spain for the Crusade, he took part in the expeditions against Tortosa and Lerida, also visiting the Holy Land. When Count Raimondo died in his arms in 1131, he undertook on his own some important enterprises for his two sees, among them the Synod of 1136. A few months later he died, immediately acclaimed as a saint; the cult was confirmed in 1675. His incorrupt body is venerated in the cathedral of Barcelona. Feast on 6 March.