Augustine of Canterbury
Saint Augustine of Canterbury, equal to the Apostles, was the enlightener of the English.
St. Augustine was sent by Pope Saint Gregory the Dialogist (Gregory the Great) to convert the pagan Anglo-Saxons. Of particular note to our times[1] is that the Britons of those days were in schism from the Church over several customs of theirs and most especially over the calendar. For the Britons kept Pascha on a different cycle from that decreed by the Council of Nicaea. They also would not agree to bring the faith to the Anglo-Saxons, at whose hands they had suffered much misery.
St. Augustine consecrated an English episcopacy single-handedly with the approval of St. Gregory, as there were no other Orthodox bishops in England at the time. According to the prophecy of St. Augustine, a great slaughter occurred among the Britons at the hands of king Ethelfrid of the English, whom they despised to baptize. Among the slain were twelve hundred monks come to pray for victory in battle.[2] The schismatic and heretical Welsh Britons would in the following centuries return to the Church.
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References
- ↑ See The Calendar Question in British History by Vladimir Moss. Available here.
- ↑ St. Bede, Ecclesiastical History of England. Book 2, Chapter 2.
