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Saint Serf or Serbán ( Servanus) () is a saint of Scotland. Serf was venerated in western Fife. He is called the apostle of Orkney, with less historical plausibility. Saint Serf is connected with Saint Mungo's Church near Simonburn, Northumberland (off the Bellingham Road, north of Chollerford). His feast day is 1 July. A St Serfs Church can also be found in the G32 area of Glasgow (Shettleston Road) East end of Glasgow.
He travelled to Gaul and United Kingdom after vacating the Holy See, returning to Scotland. There, he met Adomnán, Abbot of Iona, who showed him an island in Loch Leven (later called St Serf's Inch).Simon Taylor, "Seventh-century Iona Abbots in Scottish Places", in Dauvit Broun and Thomas Owen Clancy (eds) Spes Scotorum: Hope of Scots. Saint Columba, Iona and Scotland (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1999), p. 66. This tradition would place Serf's floruit in the late 7th century. At the time, this island was part of the Pictish kingdom of Fib (Fife). Serf founded the eponymous St Serf's Inch Priory on the island, where he remained seven years. The priory was a community of Augustinian canons. It was founded from St. Andrews Cathedral Priory at the initiation of King David I of Scotland in 1150. From the 15th century onwards the priory began to be referred to as "Portmoak". After more than four centuries of Augustinian monastic life, the first Protestant king of Scots, James VI of Scotland, granted the priory to St Leonard's College, St Andrews. Today, there are only a small amount of remains left of the priory.
The centre of his ministry (and possibly of his activity) was Culross, which according to tradition, was founded by the saint. At Dunning, in Strathearn, he is said to have slain a dragon with his Crosier.
"Finally, after many miracles, after divine virtues, after founding many churches, Saint, having given his peace to the brethren, yielded up his spirit in his cell at Dunning, on the first day of the Kalends of July; and his disciples and the people of the province take his body to Cuilenross Culross, and there, with psalms and hymns and canticles, he was honourably buried." History of the Scottish Nation, volume 3,chapter 17 by J.D. Wylie.
A legend states that when the British princess (and future saint) Theneva (Thenaw) became pregnant before marriage, her family threw her from a cliff. She survived the fall unharmed, and was soon met by an unmanned boat. She knew she had no home to go to, so she boarded the boat; it sailed her across the Firth of Forth to land at Culross where she was cared for by Saint Serf; he became foster-father of her son, Saint Kentigern (Saint Mungo). Hunter-Blair, Oswald. "St. Kentigern." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 8. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. 6 May 2014
Another legend states that Mungo restored a pet European robin of Serf's to life. The bird had been killed by some of his classmates who had planned to blame him for its death.
The name also attaches to schools in the area.
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