Saint Fridolin of Säckingen († 538) came from a noble Irish family. At the end of the 5th century, he arrived from Ireland in Poitiers, where he had a vision of Saint Hilary of Poitiers, who asked him to find his relics. Fridolin found the grave of the saint and restored the destroyed church, for which he was appointed abbot of the monastery.
After a second vision of Saint Hilary, Fridolin went to Strasbourg, Constance, and Schur, where he erected many churches dedicated to the saint. Ultimately, he found an island on the Rhine, revealed to him during a vision, and settled there. This was the island of Säckingen, which the locals mistook for a thief and expelled him.
The King of the Franks, Clovis I, granted the saint this island, and Fridolin returned, founding a male monastery that became the center of evangelical preaching in the upper reaches of the Rhine. He also established a Scottish monastery in Constance and preached as far as Augsburg.
He passed away in 538 in Säckingen and was buried there. Currently, his relics rest in Vienna, in St. Stephen's Cathedral. In Rankweil, in the Vorarlberg region of Austria, his prayer stone is kept in the chapel of Saint Fridolin.
