St. Moloc, Bishop and Confessor


HE was a Scotsman, and a zealous assistant of St. Boniface of Ross in his apostolic labours, in the seventh century, of which mention is made on the 14th of March. The relics of St. Moloc were kept with great veneration at Murlach. When Sweno, the Danish king, sent out of England a barbarous army under the conduct of Olas and Enet, king Malcolm II. after having been at first discomfited by them, overcame them in a second battle near Murlach, which victory he ascribed to the intercession of the Blessed Virgin and St. Moloc, which with his whole army he had earnestly implored. In thanksgiving he founded at Murlach, in 1010, an abbey under their joint invocation, together with a stately cathedral church which he adorned with an episcopal see, though this was afterwards translated to Aberdeen. The Danes in two other engagements were entirely routed by this religious prince, who perpetuated the memory of the former of these victories by building a second monastery under the patronage of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the town of Brechin, near which the battle was fought, and by raising an obelisk on the spot, still standing in a village called Cuin, from the name of a Danish general who was there slain. For a memorial of his last victory he erected on the place where it was gained a third abbey called Deir, in the county of Buchan, which soon after adopted the Cistercian rule, and flourished till the change of religion in 1550. The name of St. Moloc was famous over all Scotland, especially in the counties of Argyle and Ross. A considerable portion of his relics was honoured in a famous church which still bears his name at Lismore in Argyleshire. On him see Boëtius, l. 9; Hist. Lesley, l. 5, and King.	1

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