Elfodd

Who was Elfodd?

Elfodd or Elfoddw was a Welsh bishop who induced the Welsh church—after centuries of separate practice—to adopt the Roman computus for determining the date of Easter.

Elfodd appears to have been associated with the monastery at Holyhead on Anglesey as a young man and must have still been comparatively young when in 768 he persuaded the Welsh church to come into line with Rome as regards the method of calculating the date of Easter. The annals Brut y Tywysogion state: "Eight years after that [768] Easter was moved for the Britons, and Elbodius the servant of God moved it".

Elfodd's death is recorded under the year 809. Brut y Tywysogion describes him as "archbishop of Gwynedd", making him bishop of Bangor. Nennius, who says in the History of the Britons that he was a pupil of Elfodd's, describes him as a "most holy bishop" and reveals that Elfodd studied the works of Bede. One later source states that he was consecrated as a bishop in 755, but may not be reliable.