Elfodd
Encyclopedia
Elfodd also known as Elfoddw (Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 Elbodugus or Elvodugus), was a Welsh bishop who induced the Welsh church to adopt the Roman method of determining the date of Easter
Easter
Easter is the central feast in the Christian liturgical year. According to the Canonical gospels, Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. His resurrection is celebrated on Easter Day or Easter Sunday...

.

Elfodd appears to have been associated with the monastery at Holyhead
Holyhead
Holyhead is the largest town in the county of Anglesey in the North Wales. It is also a major port adjacent to the Irish Sea serving Ireland....

 on Anglesey
Anglesey
Anglesey , also known by its Welsh name Ynys Môn , is an island and, as Isle of Anglesey, a county off the north west coast of Wales...

 as a young man, and must have still been comparatively young when in 768 he persuaded the Welsh church to come into line with Rome as regards the method of calculating the date of Easter. The annals Brut y Tywysogion
Brut y Tywysogion
Brut y Tywysogion is one of the most important primary sources for Welsh history. It is an annalistic chronicle that serves as a continuation of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae. Brut y Tywysogion has survived as several Welsh translations of an original Latin version, which has...

 state:
Eight years after that [768] Easter was moved for the Britons, and Elbodius the servant of God moved it.


Elfodd's death is recorded under the year 809. Brut y Tywysogion describes him as archbishop [or chief bishop] of Gwynedd. Nennius
Nennius
Nennius was a Welsh monk of the 9th century.He has traditionally been attributed with the authorship of the Historia Brittonum, based on the prologue affixed to that work, This attribution is widely considered a secondary tradition....

, who says in the Historia Brittonum that he was the pupil of Elfodd, describes him as a most holy bishop and reveals that Elfodd was a student of the works of Bede
Bede
Bede , also referred to as Saint Bede or the Venerable Bede , was a monk at the Northumbrian monastery of Saint Peter at Monkwearmouth, today part of Sunderland, England, and of its companion monastery, Saint Paul's, in modern Jarrow , both in the Kingdom of Northumbria...

. One later source states that he was consecrated as Bishop of Bangor
Bishop of Bangor
The Bishop of Bangor is the Ordinary of the Church in Wales Diocese of Bangor.The diocese covers the counties of Anglesey, most of Caernarfonshire and Merionethshire and a small part of Montgomeryshire...

in 755, but may not be reliable.
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