26 May is the day to remember St Augustine, who was the first Archbishop of Canterbury 1,400 years ago and who started a tradition that continues today. This is the story …
Background
The story goes back to the time of Pope Gregory the Great in the AD 590s. Pope Gregory worked to spread Christianity beyond the borders of the Roman Empire. He sent missionaries to pagan Gaul, Lombard Italy, Spain, and North Africa. He also sent missionaries to England because, after the fall of the Roman Empire, much of southern and eastern Britain had reverted to paganism under the Anglo-Saxons.
Mission to England
The story goes that, before he became Pope, Gregory was a monk in Rome wandering through the slave market when he saw some male slaves who, unlike the others, were fair-skinned and fair-haired. He asked where they had come from, and the slave trader told him that they were Angles from the island of Britain. Gregory remarked, or thought, “Non Angli, sed angeli”, translated into English as “Not Angles, but angels!” It is said that he wanted to go to England himself as a missionary to these people, but the then Pope (probably Pelagius II) would not let him leave Rome. Later, when Gregory became Pope, he sent Augustine and a delegation of forty monks on his behalf.
Augustine’s Mission
Augustine began his mission to England in or around AD 597. He and his companions arrived at Ebbsfleet on the Isle of Thanet in Kent. Kent is now a county but was then an Anglo-Saxon kingdom. Here he met King Æthelbert and his wife, Queen Bertha, a Frankish princess who was already a Christian, and they welcomed him.
As part of Bertha’s marriage agreement, King Æthelbert had permitted her to bring a priest and have a chapel, which St Augustine used. In fact, this church, now called St Martin’s, is the oldest Christian church in England to have been in continuous use. Augustine preached outdoors, holding a silver cross and a Latin Gospel book. Augustine soon won over the king, who was baptised on White Sunday in AD 597. On Christmas Day 597, he baptised a further 10,000 Kentish people. King Æthelbert granted Augustine land for a cathedral and monastery.
First Archbishop of Canterbury
Augustine went to Arles, where he was consecrated as archbishop. He returned to Kent with more monks and founded Christ Church and the Abbey of Saints Peter and Paul (later called St Augustine’s Abbey). Canterbury then became the base for the evangelisation of England, and Augustine became the first Archbishop of Canterbury. He ordained twelve bishops and established the dioceses of London and Rochester.
His original monastery and cathedral site is now occupied by the current Canterbury Cathedral, the mother cathedral of the English Church. One of the other monks who accompanied St Augustine was St Paulinus, who helped to convert the Northumbrians and became the first Bishop of York, the second centre of the Church in England after Canterbury.
Pope Gregory directed Augustine to adapt pagan sites for Christian worship rather than destroy them. Many ancient churches are thought to have been built on pagan sites of worship. This was shown to be true when archaeologists had the rare opportunity to look beneath an ancient church at a site in Stoke Mandeville, Buckinghamshire, which lay in the path of HS2. Excavations found that it had been built on the site of a Roman temple.
The Church of England
Pope Gregory’s decision to evangelise England laid the foundation for the English Church (called “Ecclesia Anglicana” in Latin) as part of Christendom. Later, when it separated from papal authority under Henry VIII, it became the Church of England, but the Latin term Anglicana is still reflected in the adjective “Anglican” (from the Latin word for “English”, derived from “Angle”). The Anglican Communion is now a major worldwide family of churches.
Augustine died on 26 May 604 or 605 and was buried at his abbey, which became the resting place for early archbishops. What we know about St Augustine comes largely from the Venerable Bede, who recorded his story in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Augustine was never formally canonised, but he is known as St Augustine of Canterbury to avoid confusion with St Augustine of Hippo. He is also known as the “Apostle to the English”, although that title is sometimes also given to Pope Gregory, who sent him.
Commemoration
St Augustine is remembered in the Church calendar on the anniversary of his death each 26 May. Augustine’s body was buried at St Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury, which became a great place of pilgrimage. However, during the English Reformation, his shrine was destroyed and his relics were lost. There are at least seventeen churches in England dedicated to “St Augustine of Canterbury”, mainly in south-east England.
In 1844, a cross was erected at the spot where he is said to have landed in 597 and met King Æthelbert. It is now known as St Augustine’s Cross. A nearby plaque reads: “After many dangers and difficulties by land and sea Augustine landed at last on the shores of Richborough in the Isle of Thanet. On this spot he met King Æthelberht and preached his first sermon to our own countrymen. Thus, he happily planted the Christian faith, which spread with marvellous speed throughout the whole of England.”
In 1988, Canterbury Cathedral, St Augustine’s Abbey, and St Martin’s Church were added to the UNESCO World Heritage List. There is now a 19-mile Way of St Augustine walking trail, which follows in the footsteps of St Augustine from Ramsgate to St Augustine’s Cross and on to Canterbury Cathedral.
Legacy
Since St Augustine was the first Archbishop of Canterbury, there has continuously been an Archbishop of Canterbury for the last 1,400 years, and the current archbishop is the 106th to hold the title. The English Church that Augustine founded became the Church of England and part of a worldwide communion that is now one of the largest branches of the Christian Church after the Catholic and Orthodox traditions.
Collect
The Anglican collect prayer for St Augustine is:
“Almighty God, whose servant Augustine was sent as the apostle of the English people: grant that, as he laboured in the Spirit to preach Christ’s gospel in this land, so all who hear the good news may strive to make your truth known in all the world; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.”
