Richarius of Celles (; ; – April 26, 645 AD) was a Frankish hermit, monk, and the founder of two monasteries. He is venerated as a saint in the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches.
Life
thumb|Statue of St. Richarius in Church of St. Omer in [[Houchin, oft-invoked for protection of children]]
Riquier's vita was probably written at the end of the 7th century AD. Shortly after 800 it was revised by Alcuin at the request of Abbot Angilibert, who dedicated his work to Charlemagne.
Richarius was born a pagan in the late 6th century in the county of Ponthieu near Amiens in Picardy in the north of Francia. According to the vita written by Alcuin, Richarius gave shelter to two Welsh missionaries, Caidocus and Frechorius, who were treated with great hostility by the local people who blamed the strangers for crop failure. Because he "welcomed God in the persons of the travelers... this was why he was granted God's mercy." Richarius converted to Christianity under their influence. After his conversion, he fasted on barley bread mixed with ashes, and drank only water. He was ordained a priest, and traveled to England, preaching the Gospel and curing the sick. Travelling by donkey rather than horse, he read the psalter as he rode.
In 638, after some years in England, Richarius founded a monastery in his hometown in Ponthieu that was named Centule (or Centula, alteration of Latin Centum Turres: hundred towers).
His relics were first put in a coffin made of an oak trunk and then translated to the abbey of Centula. One hundred and fifty years later, Charlemagne built a golden shrine to enclose the relics and had the Saint-Riquier Gospels made for the shrine. In 950 Count Arnulf I of Flanders transferred the bones to Montreuil, then to the Abbey of Saint Bertin in today's St-Omer; in 980 Hugo Capet returned them to St-Riquier. Above the tomb of Riquier, an abbey was built, which was later named after him, as was the city.