Saint Roch

Saint Roch or Rocco (lived c. 1348 – 15/16 August 1376/79 (traditionally c. 1295 – 16 August 1327)) was a Catholic saint, a confessor whose death is commemorated on 16 August; he is specially invoked against the plague. He may also be called Rock in English, and has the designation of St Rollox in Glasgow, Scotland, said to be a corruption of St Roch's Loch. He is a patron saint of dogs, falsely accused people, bachelors, and several other things.

Saint Roch is given different names in various languages: (Arabic: روكز‎‎; Albanian: Shën Rroku; German and Latin: Rochus; Occitan: Ròc; Catalan/Valencian: Roc; Italian: Rocco; French: Roch; Maltese: Rokku; Polish: Roch; Spanish, Filipino and Portuguese: Roque; Slovak: Roch or Rochus; Slovene: Rok; Croatian: Rok or Roko; Hungarian: Rókus; Greek: Ρόκκος; Lithuanian: Rokas).

Saint Roch, in Pinacoteca Vaticana

Saint Roch

Saint Roch, Scilla, Calabria.

Saint Roch, Palmi.

According to his Acta and his vita in the Golden Legend, he was born at Montpellier, at that time "upon the border of France", as the Golden Legend has it, the son of the noble governor of that city. Even his birth was accounted a miracle, for his noble mother had been barren until she prayed to the Virgin Mary. Miraculously marked from birth with a red cross on his breast that grew as he did, he early began to manifest strict asceticism and great devoutness; on days when his "devout mother fasted twice in the week, and the blessed child Rocke abstained him twice also, when his mother fasted in the week, and would suck his mother but once that day".

On the death of his parents in his twentieth year he distributed all his worldly goods among the poor like Francis of Assisi—though his father on his deathbed had ordained him governor of Montpellier—and set out as a mendicant pilgrim for Rome. Coming into Italy during an epidemic of plague, he was very diligent in tending the sick in the public hospitals at Acquapendente, Cesena, Rimini, Novara and Rome, and is said to have effected many miraculous cures by prayer and the sign of the cross and the touch of his hand. At Rome, according to the Golden Legend he preserved the "cardinal of Angleria in Lombardy" by making the mark of the cross on his forehead, which miraculously remained. Ministering at Piacenza he himself finally fell ill. He was expelled from the town; and 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. Count Gothard, following his hunting dog that carried the bread, discovered Saint Roch and became his acolyte.

On his return incognito to Montpellier he was arrested as a spy (by orders of his own uncle) and thrown into prison, where he languished five years and died on 16 August 1327, without revealing his name, to avoid worldly glory. (Evidence suggests, as mentioned earlier, that the previous events occurred, instead at Voghera in the 1370s.) After his death, according to the Golden Legend,

anon an angel brought from heaven a table divinely written with letters of gold into the prison, which he laid under the head of S. Rocke. And in that table was written that God had granted to him his prayer, that is to wit, that who that calleth meekly to S. Rocke he shall not be hurt with any hurt of pestilence

The townspeople recognized him as well by his birthmark; he was soon canonized in the popular mind, and a great church erected in veneration.

The date (1327) asserted by Francesco Diedo for Saint Roch's death would precede the traumatic advent of the Black Death in Europe (1347–49) after long centuries of absence, for which a rich iconography of the plague, its victims and its protective saints was soon developed, in which the iconography of Roche finds its historical place: previously the topos did not exist. In contrast, however, St. Roch of Montpellier cannot be dismissed based on dates of a specific plague event. In medieval times, the term "plague" was used to indicate a whole array of illnesses and epidemics.

The first literary account is an undated Acta that is labeled, by comparison with the longer, elaborated accounts that were to follow, Acta Breviora, which relies almost entirely on standardized hagiographic topoi to celebrate and promote the cult of Roch.

The story that when the Council of Constance was threatened with plague in 1414, public processions and prayers for the intercession of Roch were ordered, and the outbreak ceased, is provided by Francesco Diedo, the Venetian governor of Brescia, in his Vita Sancti Rochi, 1478. The cult of Roch gained momentum during the bubonic plague that passed through northern Italy in 1477–79.

According to the doctoral thesis of history student Pierre Bolle in 2001, Saint Roch is a hagiographical doublet of a more ancient saint, Racho of Autun, Burgundy who died about 660. Racho was invoked for protection against storms and Bolle believes that his name was the basis of the name of this saint and of his patronage of plague-sufferers via a process of aphaeresis of the Old French word for a storm, tempeste, to -peste "plague". This also accords with the equilibrium of humours theory of medieval medicine of Western Europe that held that illness could be caused by corruption of the air.

Gian Paolo Vico, of the Associazione San Rocco Italia, states that a prisoner of French origin who had been held there for five years died in Voghera, Italy during the night of 15–16 August between 1376 and 1379. This prisoner had, according to some sources, attained a certain fame for sanctity in Piacenza and Sarmato. According to Vico, the 1391 calendar of Voghera records a midsummer festival in honor of Sancti Rochi (Saint Roch of Montpellier, on 16 August) and not Sancti Rochonis (Racho of Autun, on 25 January), indicating the existence of two different saints. This information strongly suggests that a local cult and feast of Roch of Montpellier existed at least as early as 1391, starting in Voghera before Montpellier. We also have documentation that the body of Roch of Montpellier was in Voghera in 1469 and that it has been venerated since at least then. There is also indications of a feast in his honor being celebrated in 1483 in the presence of his remains. This information has led to the now common belief that Roch probably died in Voghera instead of Montpellier.

Tomb of Saint Roch in Venice.

His popularity, originally in central and northern Italy and at Montpellier, spread through Spain, France, Lebanon, the Low Countries, Brazil and Germany, where he was often interpolated into the roster of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, whose veneration spread in the wake of the Black Death. The magnificent 16th-century Scuola Grande di San Rocco and the adjacent church of San Rocco were dedicated to him by a confraternity at Venice, where his body was said to have been surreptitiously translated and was triumphantly inaugurated in 1485; the Scuola Grande is famous for its sequence of paintings by Tintoretto, who painted St Roch in glory in a ceiling canvas (1564).

Statue of St Roch, Bílá Hora, Prague (1751)

We know for certain that the body of St. Roch was carried from Voghera, instead of Montpellier as previously thought, to Venice in 1485. Pope Alexander VI (1492–1503) built a church and a hospital in his honor. Pope Paul III (1534–1549) instituted a confraternity of St. Roch. This was raised to an arch-confraternity in 1556 by Pope Paul IV; it still thrives today. Saint Roch had not been officially recognized as yet, however. In 1590 the Venetian ambassador at Rome reported back to the Serenissima that he had been repeatedly urged to present the witnesses and documentation of the life and miracles of San Rocco, already deeply entrenched in the Venetian life, because Pope Sixtus V "is strong in his opinion either to canonize him or else to remove him from the ranks of the saints"; the ambassador had warned a cardinal of the general scandal that would result if the widely venerated San Rocco were impugned as an impostor. Sixtus did not pursue the matter but left it to later popes to proceed with the canonization process. His successor, Pope Gregory XIV (1590–1591), added Roch of Montpellier, who had already been memorialized in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass for two centuries, to the Roman Catholic Church Martyrology, thereby fixing August 16 as his universal feast day.

Numerous brotherhoods have been instituted in his honor. He is usually represented in the garb of a pilgrim, often lifting his tunic to demonstrate the plague sore in his thigh, and accompanied by a dog carrying a loaf in its mouth. The Third Order of Saint Francis, by tradition, claims him as a member and includes his feast on its own calendar of saints, observing it on August 17.

Saint Roch joined Gerard of Lunel (San Gerardo) as a patron saint of the city of Potenza, Italy.

Following the Black Death, especially the Italian plague epidemic of 1477-79, new images of Christian martyrs and saints appeared and Saint Roch gained new fame and popularity. The religious art of the time emphasized the importance of the saint to plague-ridden Christians.

The new plague-related images of Saint Roch were drawn from a variety of sources. Plague texts dating from ancient and classical times, as well as Christian, scientific and folk beliefs, all contributed to this emerging visual tradition. Some of the most popular symbols of plague were swords, darts, and most especially arrows. There was also a prevalence of memento mori themes, dark clouds, and astrological signs (signa magna) such as comets, which were often referenced by physicians and writers of plague tracts as causes of plague. The physical symptoms of plague – a raised arm, a tilted head, or a collapsed body – began to symbolize plague in post-Black Death painting.

Plague saints offered hope and healing before, during, and after times of plague. A specific style of painting, the plague votive, was considered a talisman for warding off plague. It portrayed a particular saint as an intercessor between God and the person or persons who commissioned the painting – usually a town, government, lay confraternity, or religious order to atone for the "collective guilt" of the community.

These plague votives worked as a psychological defense against disease in which people attempted to manipulate their situation through requesting the intercession of a saint against the arrows of plague. Rather than a society depressed and resigned to repeated epidemics, these votives represent people taking positive steps to regain control over their environment. Paintings of St. Roch represent the confidence in which renaissance worshipers sought to access supernatural aid in overcoming the ravages of plague.

The very abundance of means by which people invoked the aid of the celestial court is essential in understanding Renaissance responses to the disease. Rather than depression or resignation, people "possessed a confidence that put even an apocalyptic disaster of the magnitude of the Black Death into perspective of God's secure and benevolent plan for humankind."

The plague votives functioned both to request intercessory aid from plague saints and to provide catharsis for a population that had just witnessed the profound bodily destruction of the plague. By showing plague saints such as St. Roch and St. Sebastian, votives influenced the distribution of God's mercy by invoking the memory of the human suffering experienced by Christ during the Passion. In the art of St. Roch after 1477 the saint displayed the wounds of his martyrdom without evidence of pain or suffering. Roch actively lifted his clothing to display the plague bubo in his thigh. This display of his plague bubo showed that "he welcomed his disease as a divinely sent opportunity to imitate the sufferings of Christ… [his] patient endurance [of the physical suffering of plague was] a form of martyrdom."

Roch's status as a pilgrim who suffered plague is paramount in his iconography. "The sight of Roch scarred by the plague yet alive and healthy must have been an emotionally charged image of a promised cure. Here was literal proof that one could survive the plague, a saint who had triumphed over the disease in his own flesh."

Asia Pacific

• St. Roch Church in South Ramanathichen puthoor, Kanayakumari Dist, Tamil Nadu, India.
• St. Roch Church in Arockiapuram, Tuticorin, Tamil Nadu, India
• St. Roche's Church, Manickamangalam, Kalady, Ernakulam, Kerala, India

St. Rocky`s chapel at Kottamam-Kalady,Ernakulam, Kerala, India

• St. Rocky's Church, Areekara, Kottayam, Kerala, India.
• St. Roch's Church, Delatura, Ja-Ela, Sri Lanka. Annual feast on 3rd Sunday of August.
• St. Roque Parish Church, Neerude in Mangalore Diocese of India, Karnataka
• St. Rocky Church,Kovilakathumkadavu, Palliport,Vypin, Kerala, India
• St. Roch Church, Pootharakkal, Thrissur, Kerala, India and ST ROCH GROTTO Pootharakkal,Trissur 680561,S.India. Feast of St. ROCH is on MAY second Saturday and Sunday. Remembrance Day and spiritual celebration is on August 15.Keeps St.Roch Relic from 21/12/2014 onwards
• San Roque Parish, Bagumbayan, Quezon City, Philippines
• San Roque de Alabang, in Alabang Muntinlupa, Philippines
• San Roque Roman Catholic Parish, Sulop, Davao del Sur, Philippines
• Parokya ng San Roque, Brgy. San Roque, San Pablo City, Laguna, Philippines
• San Roque Chapel, Bongoran, Oas, Albay, Philippines
• St. Roch's Church in Hanmer Springs, Canterbury, New Zealand
• St. Roch's Church in Glen Iris, Melbourne, Australia
• San Roque Church in JP Rizal St., San Roque, Marikina City, Philippines
• San Roque Parish Church of Navotas Metro Manila, Philippines
• San Roque Cathedral, Roman Catholic Diocese of Caloocan, Metro Manila, Philippines
• San Roque Parish, Mandaluyong City [1], Metro Manila, Philippines
• Sam Roque Parish, Liloan, Cebu, Philippines
• San Roque Parish Church Cavite City Philippines
• San Roque de Manila Parish in Rizal Avenue, Sta. Cruz, Manila, Philippines
• San Roque de Sampaloc Parish in M. de la Fuente St., Sampaloc, Manila, Philippines
• San Roque Parish, Pateros, Manila, Philippines
• San Roque Parish Church, Bagumbayan, Quezon City, Philippines
• San Roque Parish Church, Pasay City, Philippines
• San Roque Parish Church, Mandaluyong City, Philippines
• San Roque Chapel, Curayao Upper Ville, Burgos, Rodriguez, Rizal (Philippines)
• St. Roch Parish, Baluarte, Gapan City, Nueva Ecija, Philippines
• San Roque GKK Dist. 1 Chapel, Tupaz St., Matina Crossing, Davao City, Philippines
• San Roque Parish Ilasan, Tayabas City, Philippines
• San Roque de Pasay, Metro Manila, Philippines
• San Roque Chapel, Mabolo Valenzuela City, Philippines
• San Roque Chapel, Mambog, Malolos City, Bulacan, Philippines
• San Roque Chapel, San Roque, Paombong, Bulacan, Philippines
• San Roque Chapel, Zamora,

Meycauayan City, Bulacan, Philippines

• San Roque Parish, Brgy. San Roque, Tarlac City, Philippines
• San Roque Iglesia Filipina Independiente Cathedral, San Felipe, Zambales, Philippines
• San Roque Catholic Church, San Felipe, Zambales, Philippines
• San Roque Parish Catholic Church, Cuyapo, Nueva Ecija, Philippines
• San Roque Chapel, Lumbangan, Tuy, Batangas, Philippines
• San Roque de Montpellier Parish, Poblacion, Asturias, Cebu (Philippines)
• San Roque de Motpellier Bebe Arabia Chapel, Bebe Arabia, Bebe Anac, Masantol, Pampanga, Philippines
• San Roque de Motpellier Bebe Centro Chapel, Bebe Centro, Bebe Anac, Masantol, Pampanga, Philippines
• San Roque de Motpellier Putat Chapel, Putat, Bebe Anac, Masantol, Pampanga, Philippines
• San Roque de Motpellier Iscundo Chapel, Iscundo, Bebe Anac, Masantol, Pampanga, Philippines
• San Roque de Motpellier Bebe Sua / Suabe Chapel, Panducena / Suabe, Bebe Anac, Masantol, Pampanga, Philippines
• San Roque de Motpellier Bebe Matua Chapel, Bebe Matua, Masantol, Pampanga, Philippines
• San Roque de Motpellier Chapel, Brgy. San Roque, Macabebe, Pampanga, Philippines
• San Roque de Motpellier Chapel, Brgy. Balingasa / A-Bonifacio, Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines
• San Roque Parish, Subangdaku, Mandaue City, Cebu (Philippines)
• San Roque Chapel, Brgy. Sampaloc, Apalit, Pampanga, Philippines
• Parish of Saint Roche, Batobalani, Paracale, Camarines Norte, Region V-Bicol, Philippines
• Parokya ng San Roque Chapel, Setio Sanroque Aposkahoy II, Claveria Misamis Oriental, Philippines
• San Roque Parish, Pateros, Metro-Manila
• San Roque Chapel, Brgy. Taywanak Ibaba, Alfonso, cavite (Philippines)
• San Roque Chapel, Paculob, Dumanjug, Cebu (Philippines)
• San Roque Chapel, Pilit, Cabancalan, Mandaue City (Philippines)
• San Roque Chapel, Brgy. Payao, Catbalogan (Philippines)
• San Roque Chapel, Brgy. San Roque, Buri Island, Catbalogan (Philippines)
• Archdiocesan Shrine of San Roque, Mambaling, Cebu City, Philippines.
• San Roque Parish, Catarman, Camiguin (Archdiocese of Cagayan de Oro)
• San Roque Chapel, Casisang, Malaybalay City, Bukidnon (Diocese of Malaybalay)
• Gumayu'us San Roque in San Roque village, Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands
• St. Roch's Church in Seethapal, Kanyakumari District, Tamil Nadu, India
• St. Roch's Church in Puthukudyiruppu, Nagercoil, Tamil Nadu, India
• St. Roch's Church in Veepu Vilai, Puthukkadai, Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu, India
• St. Roque's Chapel, Bandora, Ponda, Goa, India
• St. Roch Church in Nadu Aarupuzhi, Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu, India
• St. Roch Chapel (St. Rocky), Muringoor (Mandikkunne), Chalakudy, Thirssur, Kerala, India
• St. Rochs grotto at Assumption Church, Cheriyathura, Trivandrum, India
• Saint Roch Catholic Church, ThaKhai, Thailand
• St. Roch Church in Arockiapuram, Neyyoor, Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu, India
• San Roque Parish Church, Cordova, Cebu, Philippines

Europe

• Kościółek Świętego Rocha w Dobrzeń Wielki, Poland

Burial place of Saint Roch, Church of San Rocco in Venice, Italy

Saint-Roch, Paris, designed by Lemercier, begun 1653: pen-and-ink drawing by Charles Norry, 1787

chiesa di san rocco flumeri Italy

• San Roque (Cádiz), town in Andalucia, Spain, named after Saint Roch
• Église Saint-Roch, Paris, Rue St.-Honoré: the largest Late Baroque church in Paris
• St. Roch's Church in Pendomer, England
• St. Roch's Church in Glasgow, Scotland
• Church of Saint Roch, attached to the Scuola Grande di San Rocco in Venice, Italy
• Eglise St. Roch in Peymeinade, France
• Eglise (Paroisse-Sanctuaire) de St. Roch in Montpellier, France
• Church of Saint Roch, Žižkov, Prague, Czech Republic
• St. Rochus Chapel in Bingen am Rhein, Germany
• Kaplnka sv. Rocha Vrbové, Slovakia
• L'Oratorio di San Rocco in Gribbio, Ticino, Switzerland.
• Chapelle de Saint-Roch at la Ville Morvan near Corlay, France
• Chiesa di San Rocco in Casignana, Italy
• Chiesa di San Rocco in Cles, Italy
• Chiesa di San Rocco in Girifalco, Italy
• Chiesa di San Rocco in Gravagna (Pontremoli) Italy
• Chiesa di San Rocco in Quaglietta, Italy
• Chiesa di San Rocco in Miasino (Novara), Italy
• Chiesa di San Rocco in Molinara, Italy
• Chiesa di San Rocco in Montescaglioso, Italy
• Chiesa di San Rocco in Palmi, Italy
• Chiesa di San Rocco, in Parma, Italy
• Chiesa di San Rocco in Salandra, Italy
• Chiesa di San Rocco in Scilla, Italy
• Chiesa di San Rocco in San Procopio, Italy
• Chiesa di San Rocco, in Venice, Italy
• Chiesa di San Rocco, in Pietramelara, Italy
• Église Saint Roch, Marseille, Marseille, France
• Kappella ta' San Rokku in Attard, Malta
• St Roque Chapel in Mdina, Malta
• Santuario di San Rocco in Butera, Italy
• Igreja de São Roque in Lisbon, Portugal
• Igreja de São Roque (Funchal) in Funchal, Madeira, Portugal
• St. Roch Church in Białystok, Poland
• San Rocco, church in Rome
• Sveti Rok, church in Brežice, Slovenia
• Crkva svetog Roka, church in Novi Sad, Serbia
• Župa svetog Roka, parish church in Petrovaradin, Serbia
• Crkva Svetog Roka / Crkva Svetog Roke (Subotica), church and parish in Subotica, Serbia
• Shën Rroku, church in Shirokë, Albania
• Sveti Rok, chapel in Sali, Dugi Otok (Long Island), Croatia
• Sveti Rok, chapel on Pjevor, Lastovo, Croatia
• Sveti Roko, church in Split, Croatia
• Sveti Roko, church (not in use) Dubrovnik, Croatia
• Sveti Rok, chapel, Petrovec, Croatia
• Sveti Rok, Draškovec, Croatia
• San Rocco in Sora, (FR), Italy
• Chapelle Saint Roch in Eprave (Rochefort) Belgique
• Sint-Rochus Kerk in Aarschot, Belgium
• Sint-Rochus Kerk in Halle, Belgium
• Rochuskirche in the Düsseldorf-Pempelfort district of Düsseldorf de:Rochuskirche (Düsseldorf)
• Rochuskirche in the Landstraße district of Vienna de:Rochuskirche (Wien)
• St. Roch Church in Minsk, Belarus
• Chiesa di San Rocco (Καθολικός Ναός του Αγίου Ρόκκου) in Hania, Crete, Greece
• Church of the Saint Rocco Donja Lastva, Tivat, Montenegro
• Szent Rókus templom in Csongrád, Hungary
• Kościół św. Rocha w Poznaniu Poznań Poland
• Chiesa di San Rocco and Patron Saint of Quaglietta (Avellino), Italy
• Oratorio di San Rocco in San Colombano al Lambro(Milano) Italy
• Parroquia San Roque Oliva, Spain
• Chapel, Place du Village, Promilhanes, France
• St Rollox Church of Scotland, Scotland, United Kingdom
• Sveti Rok, Virovitica, Croatia

Levant

• Saint Roch Church in Rayfoun, Lebanon
• Monastery of Saint Roch, Dekwaneh, Lebanon
• Monastery of Saint Roch, Riyak, Bekaa, Lebanon
• Saint Roch Church, Baskinta,Lebanon

North America

• Saint Roch Catholic Church in Kahuku, Hawaii
• St Roch Church in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada
• St. Roch's Catholic Church in Toronto, Ontario, Canada
• St. Roch Church in Oxford, Massachusetts
• St. Rocco's Church in Johnston, Rhode Island
• St. Roch Church in the Chickahominy section of Greenwich, Connecticut.
• Church of St. Roch in Bronx, New York
• St. Rocco's Roman Catholic Church, Brooklyn, New York
• St. Roch's Church in Staten Island, New York
• St. Rocco's Church in Glen Cove, New York
• St. Rocco's Church in Dunmore, Pennsylvania
• St. Rochus Croatian Catholic Church in Johnstown, Pennsylvania (closed July 22, 2009)
• St. Rocco's Church Martins Creek, Pennsylvania
• Iglesia San Rocco Avondale, Pennsylvania
• St. Rocco's Church in Pittston, Pennsylvania
• St Roch Church in Flat Rock, Michigan
• St. Rocco's Church in Cleveland, Ohio
• St. Roch Church in Indianapolis, Indiana
• San Rocco Oratory in Chicago Heights, Illinois
• St. Roch's Friary in Oak Forest, Illinois which ministered for many years to the Oak Forest Hospital of Cook County
• St. Roch Church in St. Louis, Missouri
• Campo Santo and St. Roch Chapel in New Orleans, Louisiana
• St. Roch Church in Mentz, Texas
• San Roque Church in Santa Barbara, California

South America

• Iglesia de San Roque in Barranquilla, Colombia.
• Iglesia de San Roque in Tarija, Bolivia
• Paróquia de São Roque (Igreja do Cruzeiro da Vila Progresso (Jundiai Town), Estado de São Paulo (São Paulo State) Brazil
• Igreja de São Roque em São Roque (Sao Roque Town), Estado de São Paulo (São Paulo State) Brazil
• Iglesia de San Roque en San Francisco de la Montaña, Panamá
• Parroquia de San Roque, en Paraná, Provincia de Entre Ríos, Argentina
• Paróquia de São Roque em Nova Friburgo ( Nova Friburgo town), Estado do Rio de Janeiro(Rio de Janeiro State) Brazil
• Iglesia San Roque de Mancos, distrito de Mancos, Yungay, Ancash, Perú

• "The Temple of Aghios Rokkos | Monuments | City of Chania | Municipality of Chania". Chania.gr. Retrieved 2012-02-22. 

• Cape São Roque, a headland on the bend of Brazil, discovered and named by Amerigo Vespucci on August 16, 1501, the feast day of St. Roch.
• Hermandad de San Roque (Sevilla), Andalusian brotherhood of the Holy Week, which makes its season of penitence every Palm Sunday in Seville, Spain.
• Gare de Montpellier Saint-Roch, the main train station for the city of Montpellier
• Hai Mar Rochus, a neighborhood at an elevation of 933 m above sea level in Baskinta, Mount Lebanon, Lebanon.
• Mar Rochus, a hilly, middle-class neighborhood in Dekwaneh, east of Beirut, Lebanon.
• São Roque (disambiguation), a list of Portuguese towns named after Saint Roch
• Saint-Roch (disambiguation), a list of towns or natural features in Quebec or France named after Saint Roch.
• St. Roch Avenue in New Orleans, Louisiana, and the 8th Ward neighborhood named for it.
• Sveti Rok Tunnel (Croatian Tunel Sveti Rok) in Lika, Croatia on the A1 Motorway
• [1] Chemin St-Roch (Road) in the city of Terrebonne, province of Quebec, Canada
• [2] Chemin St-Roch (Road) in the city of Saint-Paul de Vence, province of Alpes-Maritimes, France
• [3] Chemin St-Roch (Road) in the city of Hamme Mille near Beauvechain, province of Walloon Brabant, Belgium
• [4] Chemin Saint Roch (Road) in the city of Beaumont, province of Hainaut, Belgium
• RCMPV St. Roch, Canadian RCMP Arctic survey schooner built in 1928
• St Roch bridge, a road bridge over the Warta river in Poznań, Poland, leading to the district of St Roch and the church Kościół św. Rocha.
• Saint Roche's Hill, in West Sussex, England. Also known as The Trundle
• Roque Bluffs, Maine
• A quadruple lock on the Canal du Midi at Castelnaudary.
• San Rocco Battery, San Rocco Redoubt and Fort St. Rocco, three fortifications in Kalkara, Malta (only Fort St. Rocco still exists).

• "Hai Mar Roukoz, Lebanon Page". Falling Rain. Retrieved 2012-02-22. 

• In Palmi, Italy, the feast of San Rocco is held on August 16. There are numerous traditions. During the procession of the statue through the streets, some faithful participate with votive offerings, stripped to the waist, wearing a cloak of thorns of wild broom (called "spalas"). The procession lasts four and a half hours and covers a seven-mile route, with the participation of about 30,000 devotees. Another form of votive offering is an anatomical human made of wax, as a sign of gratitude for a miraculous healing. During the days of the festival the streets echo to the rhythm of drums, two giants of cardboard called "Mata" and "Griffon".
• A popular Spanish tongue twister is El perro de san Roque no tiene rabo porque Ramón Ramírez se lo ha robado ("Saint Roch's dog has no tail because Ramón Ramírez stole it").
• In Bolivia, Saint Roch's day, though not as celebrated as it once was, is considered the "birthday of all dogs", in which the dogs around town can be seen with colorful ribbons tied to them.
• The main train station of Montpellier, France is named after St. Roch, as well as a church, a hospital and many squares and streets.
• In Bingen, Germany there is a St. Rochus pilgrimage church on top of a hill. Every year in August a one-week pilgrimage—the "St. Rochusfest"—is held in memory of a 17th-century vow of the city council.
• Some churches that are named after the saint distribute, as a pietistic practice, the "bread of Saint Rocco" to parishioners on August 16, his feast day.
• Saint Rocco's procession is featured in the movie The Godfather Part II. In the procession, the St. Rocco Society of Potenza, Inc., which still exists after its commencement in 1889, carries the Italian-made (original) statue in a similar manner that a replica statue is carried today. The original statue, also from 1889, can be viewed in St. Joseph's Church in New York City.
• According to Montague Summers' The Vampire in Europe, St. Roch was prayed to in Poland to ward off vampire attacks.
• The initials VSR (Viva San Rocco or Long Live St. Rocco) can still be found above doorways in Europe: This was engraved as a plea to ward off the plague.
• In Batman: Arkham City, if the player visits Calendar Man on the Feast Day of St. Roch (August 16), he will talk about the year where he set rabid dogs upon Gotham City on that day. He notes that it is an obscure holiday but remarks "I couldn't imagine a better way to celebrate the dog days of summer."
• In 2012, GMA 7 aired a drama named after him entitled Aso ni San Roque.
• St Roch's Football Club are also a semi professional football from the Royston area of Glasgow, affectionately known as "the Candy" or "the Candy Rock" because the green and yellow stripes of their shirts resemble a rock confectionery. On their badge there is a picture of St. Roch and his dog.
• A statue of St. Rocco, with a dog at his feet, is featured in the 2014 film The Drop, starring Tom Hardy and James Gandolfini (his last feature film). The protagonist Bob, played by Hardy, names his adopted dog Rocco.