{{short description|English Roman Catholic saint}}
'''Gwyddfarch''' was a hermit and founder of a Celtic abbey at Meifod in Wales.<ref>[http://celticsaints.org/2008/1103h.html St. Gwyddfarch, Hermit of Moel yr Ancr, Wales].</ref>
He was a son of Amalarus<ref>[https://cpat.org.uk/Archive/churches/montgom/75.htm "Montgomeryshire Churches Survey", Clwyd Powys Archaeological Trust]</ref> and disciple of Saint Llywelyn at Welshpool. About 550 AD he founded a monastery<ref>[http://www.living-stones.info/downloads/guides/11_St_Tysilio_Marys_web.pdf Saint Tysilio and St marys Church].</ref> at Meifod. This establishment became the mother church of several other monasteries and was a centre of the order for over one thousand years, and within a generation the monastery had become a centre of pilgrimage. Gwyddfarch taught Tysilio,<ref>Elizabeth Rees, ''Celtic Sites and Their Saints: A Guidebook'' (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2003), p. 121.</ref> who replaced him as abbot.<ref>[http://www.anglesey-history.co.uk/places/churches_and_chapels/Llandysilio/index.html Llandysilio - St. Tysilio's Church], Anglesey History</ref><ref name="Listed Buildings - Tysilio">{{cite web|title=Parish Church of St Tysilio and St Mary, Meifod|url=http://www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/wa-7646-parish-church-of-st-tysilio-and-st-mary-me#.VTfcyJP5d-4|publisher=British Listed Buildings}}</ref>
Legend holds that near the end of his life Tysilio talked the aging abbot out of a pilgrimage to Rome.<ref> [https://books.google.com/books?id=A04gDQAAQBAJ&dq=Gwyddfarch&pg=PT252 Baring-Gould, Sabine. ''A Book of North Wales'' (Library of Alexandria, 2016)]</ref> He died about the year 610.<ref>[https://ia601302.us.archive.org/17/items/livesofbritishsa03bariuoft/livesofbritishsa03bariuoft.pdf Baring-Gould, Sabine and Fisher, John. ''The Lives of the British Saints'', vol. III, London, The Honorable Society of Cymmrodorian, 1911, p. 220]</ref>
He is commemorated on 3 November.<ref>[http://celticsaints.org/2008/1103h.html St. Gwyddfarch, Hermit of Moel yr Ancr, Wales].</ref>
==References== {{Portal|Wales|Cornwall}} {{reflist}} {{authority control}}
Category:Southwestern Brythonic saints Category:English Roman Catholic saints Category:6th-century Christian saints Category:6th-century Christians Category:Year of birth unknown Category:6th-century English monarchs