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Icons of St. Piran (Perran),
abbot
Feast: Mar. 5
One of the patrons of
Cornwall, St. Piran is the patron of tin-miners also. He was an
Irishman who was cast into the sea with a millstone, by heathen Irish,
but floated safely to the Cornish beaches. There he was joined by many
of his Christian converts and established the abbey of Lanpiran,
administering this community as its abbot. St. Piran was able to
re-establish tin-smelting in Cornwall (the method for doing this had
been lost after the days of the Roman settlers), his black hearthstone
having had the tin smelted out of it. The tin rose to the top of the
stone in the form of a white cross; thus a white cross on a black
background is called the "Cross of St. Perran." In Cornwall,
"Perrantide" is the name given to the week before St. Piran's day, a
feast kept with a Cornish-language play presenting his life, daffodils
placed at the Cross of St. Piran, and the wearing of black, white, and
gold by those attending. Our holy father abbot Piran was a bearer of
the gospel to new lands, and a guide and father to many monastics. Holy
Father Piran, pray to God for us!
Top Icon: unknown provenance.
Next Icon: by the hand of
iconographer Zhivko Donkov of Bulgaria.
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