The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick/The Life and Acts of St. Patrick/Chapter 52

How Forkernus and his Parents were Converted and Baptized.

And Saint Lumanus having landed at the aforementioned town of Athtrym, he converted unto the faith of Christ first Forkernus, the son of a certain great man who there ruled, then his mother, a Britoness by nation, and lastly his father, Fethleminus, and in a fountain which by his prayers he produced out of the earth, even before their eyes, did he baptize them and many others. And these things being done, the holy prelate, in the twenty-fifth year before the foundation of Ardmachia, there builded a church, to the endowment and the enrichment whereof Fethleminus, that faithful servant of Christ, gave by solemn gift Athtrym and Midia, with many farms, and then crossing the river, he builded a habitation for himself and for his people, and there did he piously finish his days. And Lumanus, being consecrated the bishop of this church, sent his novice, Forkernus, to be instructed in letters, and, when he was sufficiently learned, advanced him to the priesthood. And as the day of his death approached, he went with Forkernus unto his brother Brocadius, and commanded Forkernus on his obedience that he should, after his decease, take on himself the government of the church over which he presided. But he, refusing and protesting that it accorded neither to reason nor to justice that he should in the church of his father take on himself the guidance of souls, lest he should seem to hold in heritage the sanctuary of the Lord, his father and pastor bound him thereto by his iterated commands. Why need we many words? Lumanus would not bless him until he had promised to undertake this office. And at length Lumanus, having departed from this light unto the mansion of eternal light, Forkernus, as enjoined, took on himself the care of his church; and after he had presided over it only three days, he committed it unto a certain stranger, by birth a Briton, named Cathladius. Thus did the man of God fulfil the command of his father, and thus he took care that he should not set the example of selling the rights of the church or the heritage of his parents. But all the revenues of this church were by Lumanus transferred to Saint Patrick and his successors, and for ever after given unto the church of Ardmachia.