A saint's day
St Gertrude of Nivelles
St Gertrude, daughter of Pepin of Landen and St Itta, refused as a girl of about ten a marriage offered by the king, saying that Christ alone would be her Bridegroom. When her mother founded the monastery of Nivelles, Gertrude received the monastic tonsure and became its first abbess, loving learning and welcoming traveling monks, especially the Irish missionaries. Worn out by fasting and vigils, she reposed at about thirty-three years of age.
The dates
- Kept on
- 17 March (30 March on the Old Calendar)
- Next, New Calendar
- Next, Old Calendar
The New Calendar (the Greek, Antiochian, Romanian and Bulgarian churches, the OCA and most converts) keeps fixed feasts on the church date; the Old Calendar (the Russian, Serbian and Georgian churches, Jerusalem and Mount Athos) keeps them 13 days later. Pascha and the feasts that follow it are kept on the same day by both.
How the day is kept
Orthodox Christians of the West honor her as a saint of the undivided Church; she is not a major saint in the Russian or Greek calendars.
She shares her day with St Patrick: St Ultan foretold that she would repose on his feast, and so she did.
In the West she was the old protector of travelers, pilgrims and gardeners, and in modern times many cat lovers have adopted her, a gentle custom that grew out of her medieval protection against rats and mice.
Name days
These names keep their name day on this feast:
The saint
Icons for the feast
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