St. Berthold of Mount Carmel

St. Berthold of Mount Carmel was a figure of the era of the Crusades, honored in Carmelite tradition as one of the founders and early organizers of the hermits who dwelt on Mount Carmel in the Holy Land. A Frenchman, according to the accounts, and possibly a kinsman of a Crusader leader, he came to the East and, after a life of arms or of pilgrimage, embraced the eremitical life on the holy mountain associated with the prophet Elijah.

There he is said to have gathered the scattered hermits of Carmel into a more ordered community living near the fountain of Elijah, devoting themselves to prayer, penance, and the imitation of the prophet's zeal for the Lord, and to have guided them for many years as their leader. From these beginnings would grow the Order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Though much of his story is known only through later tradition, he is venerated among the Carmelite saints, and his memory is kept on 29 March.