15 Facts About Saint Roch

Saint Roch has the designation of Rollox in Glasgow, Scotland, said to be a corruption of Roch's Loch, which referred to a small loch once near a chapel dedicated to Roch in 1506.

Saint Roch is a patron saint of dogs, invalids, falsely accused people, bachelors, and several other things.

Saint Roch is the patron saint of Dolo and Parma, as well as Casamassima, Cisterna di Latina and Palagiano.

Saint Roch is the patron saint of the towns of Arboleas and Albanchez, in Almeria, southern Spain, and Deba, in the Basque Country.

The chronology of the Saint Roch's life is uncertain and full of legendary elements.

Saint Roch's birth was accounted a miracle, for his noble mother had been barren until she prayed to the Virgin Mary.

Saint Roch withdrew into the forest, where he made himself a hut of boughs and leaves, which was miraculously supplied with water by a spring that arose in the place; he would have perished had not a dog belonging to a nobleman named Gothard Palastrelli supplied him with bread and licked his wounds, healing them.

Saint Roch is usually represented in the garb of a pilgrim, often lifting his tunic to demonstrate the plague sore, or bubo, in his thigh, and accompanied by a dog carrying a loaf in its mouth.

Saint Roch received renewed attention and veneration during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The new plague-related images of Saint Roch were drawn from a variety of sources.

Paintings of Saint Roch represent the confidence in which renaissance worshipers sought to access supernatural aid in overcoming the ravages of the plague.

Saint Roch actively lifted his clothing to display the plague bubo on his thigh.

Prince published a long monologue from the perspective of Saint Roch's dog entitled 'His Dog and Pilgrim' in his 1983 collection Later On.

The breaking of a statue of Saint Roch is a crucial incident in the 1934 novel Clochemerle by Gabriel Chevallier.

Saint Roch's dog is sometimes conflated with the folk saint Saint Guinefort, the holy greyhound.