Odile of Alsace

St Odile of Alsace, also known as Odilia and Ottilia, born c. 662 - c. 720 at Mont Sainte-Odile), is a saint venerated in the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church. The current Roman Catholic liturgical calendar does not officially commemorate her feastday, of 13 December, but she is commemorated on this day in the Orthodox Church. She is a patroness of good eyesight, and of Alsace.

Biography

Odile was the daughter of Etichon (also known as Athich, Adalrich or Aldaric), Duke of Alsace and founder of the Etichonid noble family. By tradition she was born blind. Her father did not want her because she was a girl and handicapped, so her mother Bethswinda had her brought to Palma (perhaps present day Baume-les-Dames in Burgundy), where she was raised by peasants there.

A tenth-century legend relates that when she was twelve, Odile was taken into a nearby monastery. Whilst there, the itinerant bishop Saint Erhard of Regensburg was led, by an angel it was said, to Palma where he baptised her Odile (Sol Dei), whereupon she miraculously recovered her sight. Her younger brother Hughes had her brought home again, which enraged Etichon so much that he accidentally killed his son. Odile miraculously revived him, and left home again.

Odilia (genus)

Odilia is a genus of nematode worms established by Marie-Claude Durette-Desset in 1973 that infect mostly murid rodents of the Australasian region (species of Melomys, Rattus and Uromys from mainland Australia and Tasmania.

Species include:

References