#st pope gregory the great

[anastpaul]

Saint of the Day – 9 June – Saint Maximian of Syracuse (Died 594) Bishop

Saint of the Day – 9 June – Saint Maximian of Syracuse (Died 594) Bishop, Monk at St Gregory the Great’s Monastery in Rome and a close friend and collaborator with St Gregory in many instances and on many projects. Born in Sicily and died in 594 of natural causes at Syracuse, Sicily. Also known as – Massimiano. The Roman Martyrology states: “In Syracuse, Saint Maximian, Bishop, of whom Saint…

[thepastisalreadywritten]

SAINT OF THE DAY (September 3)

St. Gregory the Great, a central figure of the medieval western Church and one of the most admired Popes in history, is commemorated in the Ordinary Form of the Roman Catholic liturgy today, September 3.

Born near the middle of the sixth century into a noble Roman family, Gregory received a classical education in liberal arts and the law.

He also had strong religious formation from his devout family, particularly from his mother Silvia, also a canonized saint.

By the age of 30, Gregory had advanced to high political office in Rome, during what was nevertheless a period of marked decline for the city.

Some time after becoming the prefect of the former imperial capital, Gregory chose to leave the civil administration to become a monk during the rise of the Benedictine order.

In reality, however, the new monk's great career in public life was yet to come.

After three years of strict monastic life, he was called personally by the Pope to assume the office of a deacon in Rome.

From Rome, he was dispatched to Constantinople to seek aid from the emperor for Rome's civic troubles and to aid in resolving the Eastern church's theological controversies.

He returned to Rome in 586, after six years of service as the Papal representative to the eastern Church and empire.

Rome faced a series of disasters caused by flooding in 589, followed by the death of Pope Pelagius II the next year.

Gregory, then serving as abbot in a monastery, reluctantly accepted his election to replace him as the Bishop of Rome.

Despite this initial reluctance, however, Pope Gregory began working tirelessly to reform and solidify the Roman liturgy, the disciplines of the Church, the military and economic security of Rome, and the Church's spreading influence in western Europe.

As Pope, Gregory brought his political experience at Rome and Constantinople to bear in the task of preventing the Catholic Church from becoming subservient to any of the various groups struggling for control of the former imperial capital.

As the former abbot of a monastery, he strongly supported the Benedictine movement as a bedrock of the western Church.

He sent missionaries to England and is given much of the credit for the nation's conversion.

In undertaking these works, Pope Gregory saw himself as the “servant of the servants of God.”

He was the first of the Bishops of Rome to popularize the now-traditional Papal title, which referred to Christ's command that those in the highest position of leadership should be “the last of all and the servant of all.”

Even as he undertook to consolidate Papal power and shore up the crumbling Roman west, St. Gregory the Great maintained a humble sense of his mission as a servant and pastor of souls, from the time of his election until his death in 604.

[maypoleman1]

12th March

St Gregory the Great’s Day

St Gregory the Great with Blond Angle Boys at a Slave Market in Rome (litho). Source: The Story of the British People in Pictures (1936)/ Bridgeman Images

Today is St Gregory the Great’s Day. Gregory was Bishop of Rome (an early Patriarch, or Pope) and put into place much of the organisation and liturgy of what became the Roman Catholic Church in a Western Roman Empire which, by the mid sixth century, was largely in the hands of Germanic successor-kingdoms, few of whom were Catholic. It was in this context that Gregory’s most famous connection with Britain took place. Although Britannia had been long lost to the Empire, the former province remained deeply contested between invading Anglo-Saxons and the native Romano-Britons. Rome itself had returned to imperial rule after Constantinople’s reconquest of much of Italy and it was while strolling past a Roman slave market that the Bishop’s attention was drawn to the sight of half a dozen slave boys, all with bright blonde hair. On enquiring who they were, the auctioneer told Gregory they were ‘Angles’ or ‘Angli’ in Latin - the Angles were one of the tribes invading Britain at the time. Gregory allegedly responded ‘Not Angli but Angeli’, commenting on the boys’ angelic appearance. On hearing the Angles were Germanic pagans, in 597 Gregory sent the great missionary Augustine to the Jutish kingdom of Kent to commence the conversion of the English to Roman Catholic Christianity. The rest, as they say, is history.

Sadly, Gregory’s momentous decision is not particularly, or reverently, remembered. In Lancashire Gregory was known fondly as “Gregory-get-onion”. Apparently this somewhat unflattering term for the Pope stemmed from the fact that today is traditionally the day on which to sow onion seed in order to ensure a bumper crop. That crop will also enable some weather divining. If the onions are thin-skinned, then the forthcoming winter will be mild; thick-skinned and a hard winter beckons.

[proud-spaniard]

St Gregory The Great being inspired by the Holy Spirit as a dove

San Gregorio Magno inspirado por el Espíritu Santo en forma de paloma

[portraitsofsaints]

Saint Gregory the Great 

Doctor of the Church

540-604

Feast Day: September 3 (New), March 12 (Trad)

Patronage: teachers, students, musicians, singers and England

St. Gregory the Great was Pope from 590 to 604 and is known for his contributions to the Liturgy of the Mass. He built 6 monasteries in Sicily and founded a seventh in his home in Rome. He is one of the four great Doctors of the Latin Church and the first monk to become Pope. Despite his bodily ails and the frightful times he lived in, it has been said that no teacher of equal eminence has arisen in the Church.

Prints, plaques & holy cards available for purchase here: (website)

[cellabella-illuminates]

Happy April, everyone!

St. Catherine of Siena's feast day is April 29th - if you have anyone in your life who is a fan of this Doctor of the Church, you could gift them this print on her feast day because I finally put them in my shop!

About my illustration and print as well as a little about St. Catherine of Siena:

This is a 5” x 7”  limited edition giclée print (ten editions) on Epson Somerset Velvet - 255 gsm, certified archival paper. Each print is signed, titled, and numbered. Also, the halo on each print is hand-painted with gold gouache, giving each print a unique reflective quality. Shipping and archival picture-framing tips are included.

St. Catherine of Siena, a third-order Dominican from the 14th century, is one of the first female saints named a Doctor of the Church; patron saint of Europe, Italy, journalists, mediators, and people ridiculed for their faith.

In this image, Saint Catherine is standing between Italy and France (Italy is behind her and France is in front of her). She is holding a crucifix in her right hand, as well as a pink rose and a lily, symbols of love and purity. She is extending her left hand toward the border of France (and the viewer) calling the Pope back to Rome. 

This is referencing the time during which the Pope had left Rome for the French city of Avignon, which had resulted in a crisis within the Church called the Great Schism of the West, in which multiple men backed by different kings claimed the papacy. Through her letters, Catherine persuaded Pope Gregory XI to return to Rome from France, persuading also other rulers to recognize the true pope. In addition to calling the Pope back to Rome, she was essential for diplomatic missions to negotiate a peace with Florence. St. Catherine had a gift for telling men to get off their asses and bringing peace. In my illustration, she is reaching out to the viewer, looking directly at them, reminding them of the same thing: get up and do what the Lord has called you to do.

On her head is a crown of thorns, symbolizing a vision she had five years before her death in which Christ offered her a golden crown, symbolizing earthly riches, or a crown of thorns, symbolizing the glory of heaven through suffering in this life (St. Catherine chose the latter). She is also shown with the stigmata on her hands, which she also received in a mystical vision five years before her death.

[apenitentialprayer]

transcript of the video below

And this was kind of channeled for me during the Pandemic, when (and whether it's the same in America, I don't know) in Britain, a lot of the churches basically focused on giving public health messages, kinda telling us to wear masks, to wash our hands and stuff. They were excellent messages, no doubt, but, you know, everyone else was saying that as well. I think that churches should celebrate what sets them apart. The problem for churches, basically, is that they won; so all the things that seemed radical and strange and bizarre to the Romans are now accepted. And a lot of what the Church has traditionally provided —education, healthcare, or so on, you know, charity relief— have been nationalized, the state provides that. So what is left for the churches to do? And I think what the churches should do is to celebrate all the mad-weird stuff that, you know, you're not getting from the Department of Health. So... angels, and God thundering from Mount Sinai, and all that kind of thing. Book of Job; all that stuff. I thought the weirdest thing, in the sense of "it sent shivers down my spine" and opened up vistas of possibility was the one exception that proves the rule in terms of churches not…. not making sense of the horrors that the world was going through during the Pandemic, which is quite early in the lockdown in Rome. The Pope — I can't remember what he was doing, he was… it can't have been a Mass, he was… it was some observance, in St. Peter's Square; and it was completely empty. Just him, in St. Peter's Square; and he, he made prayers and did whatever he was doing, and as he was doing it, bells were clanging out over Rome and the wailing of ambulances taking the sick to hospitals. And he went and prayed before an icon that tradition says had been sent from Constantinople in the reign of Gregory the Great; an icon of Christ, the infant Christ and the Virgin. And Gregory the Great, who was pope in the sixth century, had become pope during a period of plague. and his papacy existed in the context of the kind of suffering that we were going through. And he wrote a great commentary on Job, the Book of Job, which is, perhaps, the profoundest, most troubling, most (and for that reason I think) most satisfying attempt in the Bible to explain how a good God can permit evil to happen. I mean, it doesn't give an answer, but it kind of transcends, perhaps, the need to have an answer for that. And watching that gave me a sense of… the unbelievable wealth of the Christian attempt to explain why we, why we're here. Christianity is the most… successful explanation that humanity has ever come up with to explain why we're here, and why bad things happen, and why good things happen, and the whole nexus of it. And that is an unbelievable reservoir for us to draw on. And I felt that very, very strongly writing Dominion. Kind of… my eyes were opened up to the, the incredible richness in this tradition, and I think that is part of the weirdness; moments that enable you to feel that, to feel that you're not just you in 2023. That you're part of the totality of the human experience that is (perhaps) embraced within the mind of God. I mean, it's a very, very profound feeling, I think.

[thedavekim]

St Gregory the Great (Pope Gregory I); one of the Latin Fathers and Doctor of the Church; patron saint of musicians, singers, students, and teachers

[ginandoldlace]

KING ALFRED THE GREAT 848-899AD

In the words of Sir Walter Besant;

"Alfred is and will always remain the typical man of our race- call him Anglo Saxon, call him American, call him Englishman, call him Australian- the typical man of our race at his best and noblest"

England's most famous Saxon king of Wessex. Most famous for his successful defence against the Great Heathen and Summer Dane armies led by Guthrum, and the sons of Ragnar Lodbrok and efforts of pagan conversion.

In 853, whilst still a young boy, Alfred travelled on a pilgrimage with his father to Rome. Whilst there, he was confirmed by Pope Leo IV himself who grew a paternal love for the boy, and named Alfred an honorary consul of Rome and king of God (although Alfred was not expected to receive the throne as fifth in line). Alfred also spent a time in the court of the Frankish emperor, Charles the Bald.

Although suffering from life-long stomach sicknesses and pains, he distinguished himself as a scholar and a poet from childhood, an interest he inherited from his mother. As fate would have it, following the deaths of all his four older brothers, he was crowned king of Wessex at only 23.

Alfred was known as an incredibly pious and zealous Catholic monarch with special focus on education reforms with a desire for more peasants to be educated, especially in literacy and Church religion. He personally translated the Latin works of St. Augustine and St. Pope Gregory the Great into vernacular. He is also credited with building England's first navy.

Alfred spent most of his life trying to repel pagan invasions with a dream of uniting England into a single country. A dream that would be completed by his grandson, Athelstan, who defeated the last Viking stronghold as the first Anglo-Saxon ruler of all England.

Alfred would cement his fame in history at the battle of Ethandun where won a last stand, battle after a surprise attack which sent he and his family into hiding in the marshes for months.

Upon defeat, Viking chieftain, Guthrum, converted to Christianity and was baptised with Alfred as his godfather; subsequently ruling as Alfred's Christian puppet state in East Anglia.

After his victory at Eddington, Alfred worked on strengthening the borders against further Viking incursions by constructing a network of fortified burhs and forts to protect local peasants, manned by localised militias after he reformed the military to be more efficient. Throughout his rule, he also sent letters out to monasteries, bishops and feudal lords from mainland Europe, requesting for them to send learned scholars to his court to aid in education reforms; especially from the Franks. It was during this time, Alfred also taught himself Latin. Alfred was the king who saved England from total pagan rule, as the last Christian monarch standing. Even when defeated and all seemed lost, Alfred emerged from the marshes with an assembled army and made one of the greatest military and political comebacks in history.

[cruger2984]

The Pretty Cures and its Saints: Smile Pretty Cure!

LONG. TIME. COMING. 2012 is the year that is all gon' crazy - from the Linsanity takeover, Obama got re-elected as the Commander-in-Chief, Loreen winning in Baku, to the end of the Mayan calendar (and it's not the end of the world as we know it). So, without further ado, here are the Smile Cures with their birthdays corresponding with feast days that is honored and recognized by the Roman Catholic Church!

January 10 - Miyuki Hoshizora (Cure Happy)

St. William of Donjeon (Guillaume de Donjeon): French prelate of the Cistercian order who served as the Archbishop of Bourges from 1200 AD until his passing. He was also known for his deep devotion to the Blessed Sacrament and for his conversion of sinners, and oversaw the construction of the new archdiocesan cathedral that his predecessor had authorized and in which he himself would be buried. It had been claimed that he performed eighteen miracles in life and a further eighteen in death.

May 8 - Akane Hino (Cure Sunny)

The Apparition of St. Michael the Archangel: Traditionally in the Liturgy of the Church, there are two feasts of St. Michael in the Universal Calendar: May 8 and September 29. According to the Roman Breviary, the feast was instituted to thank God for a military victory achieved at Monte Gargano, Italy, on May 8th in the year 663, through the intercession of St. Michael.

December 14 - Yayoi Kise (Cure Peace)

St. John of the Cross: Spanish Carmelite priest, mystic and friar, who is a major figure of the Counter-Reformation in Spain, and he is one of the thirty-seven Doctors of the Church. John is known for his writings, and was mentored by and corresponded with the older Carmelite Teresa of Ávila. Both his poetry and his studies on the development of the soul, particularly his Noche Obscura, are considered the summit of mystical Spanish literature and among the greatest works of all Spanish literature. Canonized a saint by Pope Benedict XIII in 1726 and declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope Pius XI in 1926.

October 9 - Nao Midorikawa (Cure March)

St. Louis Bertrand: Spanish Dominican friar, confessor, missionary, and religious brother who is known as the ’Apostle of South America.’ After his ordination by St. Thomas of Villanova, he went to South America for his missionary work. According to legend, a deadly draught was administered to him by one of the native priests. Through Divine interposition, the poison failed to accomplish its purpose. There is a town festival, called La Tomatina in Buñol, Valencia, in his honor along with Mare de Déu dels Desemparats.

February 10 - Reika Aoki (Cure Beauty)

St. Scholastica: According to a tradition from the 9th century, she is the twin sister of St. Benedict. She is the foundress of the women’s branch of Benedictine Monasticism, and is the patron saint of nuns, education, and convulsive children, and is invoked against storms and rain, due to a narrative that can be found in the Dialogues by St. Gregory the Great.

March 17 - Ayumi Sakagami (Cure Echo)

St. Gertrude of Nivelles: 17th century Benedictine abbess who, with her mother Itta, founded the Abbey of Nivelles, now in Belgium. She is the patron saint of travelers, gardeners, against plague and cats.

[anastpaul]

Quote/s of the Day – 9 June – The Popes on the Sacred Heart of Jesus

Quote/s of the Day – 9 June – “The Month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus” and within the Octave of the Sacred Heart – Pentecost III “Learn of the Heart of Godin the Words of God,so that you may ardently longfor eternal things.” St Pope Gregory the Great (540-604)Great Father and Doctor of the Church “In the Sacred Heart,there is the Symboland the express Imageof the Infinite Love of Jesus…

[thepastisalreadywritten]

SAINT OF THE DAY (September 3)

St. Gregory the Great, a central figure of the medieval western Church and one of the most admired Popes in history, is commemorated in the Ordinary Form of the Roman Catholic liturgy today, September 3.

Born near the middle of the sixth century into a noble Roman family, Gregory received a classical education in liberal arts and the law.

He also had strong religious formation from his devout family, particularly from his mother, Silvia, also a canonized saint.

By around age 30, Gregory had advanced to high political office in Rome, during what was nevertheless a period of marked decline for the city.

Some time after becoming the prefect of the former imperial capital, Gregory chose to leave the civil administration to become a monk during the rise of the Benedictine order.

In reality, however, the new monk's great career in public life was yet to come.

After three years of strict monastic life, he was called personally by the Pope to assume the office of a deacon in Rome.

From Rome, he was dispatched to Constantinople to seek aid from the emperor for Rome's civic troubles and to aid in resolving the Eastern church's theological controversies.

He returned to Rome in 586, after six years of service as the Papal representative to the eastern Church and empire.

Rome faced a series of disasters caused by flooding in 589, followed by the death of Pope Pelagius II the next year.

Gregory, then serving as abbot in a monastery, reluctantly accepted his election to replace him as the Bishop of Rome.

Despite this initial reluctance, however, Pope Gregory began working tirelessly to reform and solidify the Roman liturgy, the disciplines of the Church, the military and economic security of Rome, and the Church's spreading influence in western Europe.

As pope, Gregory brought his political experience at Rome and Constantinople to bear in the task of preventing the Catholic Church from becoming subservient to any of the various groups struggling for control of the former imperial capital.

As the former abbot of a monastery, he strongly supported the Benedictine movement as a bedrock of the western Church.

He sent missionaries to England and was given much of the credit for the nation's conversion.

In undertaking these works, Pope Gregory saw himself as the “servant of the servants of God.”

He was the first of the Bishops of Rome to popularize the now-traditional Papal title, which referred to Christ's command that those in the highest position of leadership should be “the last of all and the servant of all.”

Even as he undertook to consolidate Papal power and shore up the crumbling Roman west, St. Gregory the Great maintained a humble sense of his mission as a servant and pastor of souls, from the time of his election until his death in 604.

[apesoformythoughts]

“In his Homily on the Gospels, [Pope St.] Gregory presents [Mary Magdalene] as a paragon and chiefly as an example of patience: patient faith, patient love, patient searching. Mary was the first to see Christ because she patiently remained at the tomb when the others had left. ‘Perseverance is essential for any beneficial work, as the voice of truth tells us: Whoever perseveres to the end will be saved,’ Gregory writes, and continues: ‘At first she sought but did not find, but when she persevered it happened that she found what she was looking for. When our desires are not satisfied, they grow stronger, and becoming stronger they take hold of their object. Holy desires likewise grow with anticipation, and if they do not grow they are not really desires. Anyone who succeeds in attaining the truth has burned with such a great love. As David says: My soul has thirsted for the living God; when shall I come and appear before the face of God? And so also in the Song of Songs the Church says: I was wounded by love; and again: My soul is melted with love.’”

— Tomáš Halík: Patience with God

[lawrenceop]

Homily for the feast of St Frideswide

A few years ago there was a wonderful exhibition in the British Library called ‘Anglo Saxon Kingdoms: Art, Word, War’. However this somewhat bland title masked the fact that the exhibition was really about the light that the Christian Faith and Christian culture brought to these lands during a time that is still referred to as ‘the Dark Ages’. For the Art that was featured came from illuminated Gospel books and psalters and were depictions of Christ, the angels, and Saints; the Word that was preserved was written by Christian monks and scribes, whose fine uncial script copied the words of Scripture, and the Rule of St Benedict, and the thought of Beothius, and the lives of the Saints, including of course, the Ecclesiastical History of the English People written by St Bede in the 8th-century. All this was written in Latin, the language of the Western Church and of Roman civilisation, and the ancient rite of Mass we celebrate today connects us to our common heritage. 

And the War referred to in the title of this exhibition involved Christian kings and their realms struggling against pagan ideas and the pushback of pagan powers – the war for Christian civilisation in other words, which we in our generation are called to take up, for the Gospel has to be heard anew in every generation, and the light must shine through our lives and our example in order to keep the darkness at bay. Here in Oxford, which has St Frideswide for its patron saint, and in its venerable University, whose motto declares the Lord to be our light, we must strive to live up to that motto and to the example of St Frideswide.

For the saint we celebrate in today’s Mass comes from that ancient pre-Norman Christian world, and she is numbered among those Anglo-Saxon saints whom we do well to recall because they remind us that the Catholic Faith, founded on the faith of St Peter and linked to Rome, is truly the “faith of our fathers”. It is for this ancient and true Faith that the Oxford Martyrs shed their blood, after all. Our procession this afternoon to the site of Blessed George Napier’s martyrdom serves to bear witness to this, and to honour their sacrifice. Indeed, the Oxford Martyrs died defending the Catholic Faith which had been brought to this island by missionaries sent by Pope St Gregory the Great himself. In 597, St Augustine had come to England and the succeeding centuries had witnessed the establishment and flourishing of Christian civilisation in these lands. So from the beginning this Christian culture in Britain had, as the exhibition catalogue observed, “an umbilical link between England and Rome that persisted until the Reformation.”   

St Frideswide is very much a part of that first flourishing of the Faith in Anglo-Saxon England. She was a princess of Wessex in the kingdom of Mercia, and her name is probably pronounced Frithuswith (rather than Frideswide), and she was born c.650. Like quite few other royal women of her age, she became abbess of a monastery she had founded with her parents’ help in Oxford, on the site that is now called Christ Church Cathedral. This suggests to me the close links between the Church and the political rulers of the time. But after the death of her parents, King Aethelbald of Mercia sought to marry her, disregarding her vow of celbacy. When she refused, he tried to abduct her so she fled to Bampton and then to Binsey. Aethelbald is thwarted when he is struck blind by God so he gives up. But a well springs up in Binsey, and people go to Frithuswith for prayers and healing, and she later returns to Oxford to her monastery where she was buried after her death on this day in 727. Later on, in the 1440s, some 200 years after the Dominicans first arrived in Oxford, St Frideswide is declared patron saint of Oxford, and the friars in Oxford back then would have celebrated the first solemn feast days of St Frideswide in the rite that is being used here today. 

St Frideswide’s relics are still somewhere in Christ Church Cathedral but they had been scattered after the Reformation and so they’re not possible to locate, but we do well to visit the location of her medieval shrine, and to seek her intercession as countless other Catholics have done before us.

For we have much need of the help and example of the saints to inspire us and to fortify us as we seek to build the kingdom of God in our times and in these lands. And so we too need now to take up the weapons of our spiritual War and contend with the powers who seek to pursue us and silence us. Thus we need to pray and to fast and to struggle against the political powers who want to ban us from even praying silently. We need also to proclaim the Word faithfully and confidently, to seek Truth in places like the University, and in this Dominican House of Studies, Blackfriars, and to joyfully preach the Word and prudently refute error. And finally we also need in our time to pay attention to Art, that is to say, to Beauty which draws souls to Christ – beauty in the Liturgy, beauty in the sacred arts, and above all, beauty in lives of holiness and Christian friendship. 

It seems to me that one beautiful gift from Our Lady sums up war, word, and art and this is the Holy Rosary. Pray it daily, as Our Lady begs us to do, and know that it is the most powerful weapon for banishing the darkness. These are dark ages, indeed, but the light of our one true Faith shines brightly whenever the Rosary is prayed. So, in the words of  one of Oxford’s most well-known residents, J.R.R. Tolkien, “May [this] be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out”.

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Anonymous asked: I read your post on the philosophical defence of monarchy and I’m impressed with the way you mounted such a formidable argument in favour of it. The flaw in your argument is how old you portray the monarchy’s ancient origins to lend legitimacy to its rule. How can you say the rituals and traditions of the British monarchy are ancient if the coronation itself took place in an Anglican church after the Reformation? That makes it a modern invention not ancient. Your fancy intellectualizing is built on a house of cards.

Thank you for at least reading my post even if you haven’t quite understood what I did write. The flaw in your reasoning is to conflate the British monarchy with the the tumultuous changes of the Reformation in England alongside the establishment of the sovereign as the head of the Church of Engand.

The coronation of a new monarch in the Anglican church had not been going on since the Reformation but goes back even further before the Reformation. Your mistake is to wrongly date the Anglican church. People forget this but the Church of England was established by St Augustine of Canterbury in 597 CE.

Almost nothing is known of the early life of the man who brought Christianity to medieval England. Augustine was most likely living as a monk in Rome when in 595, Pope Gregory the Great chose him to lead a mission to convert the pagan Anglo-Saxons to the Christian faith. Christianity had been present in England during Roman times, but with the arrival of the Saxons, most of the country had once again reverted to paganism.

England in the 6th century was divided into many warring kingdoms. Of these, it was Kent that was chosen as the place to begin Augustine’s mission in England, most likely because of the powerful position of its ruler, King Æthelberht.

The story of St Augustine’s arrival in England has become the stuff of legend, and was first told by the 8th-century monk and historian Bede, writing 140 years after the events took place. Bede describes how when Augustine arrived in Kent, Æthelberht met the monk and his 40 companions outdoors, because the pagan king was scared of the new arrivals practising sorcery.

The monks are said to have held up a silver cross and a panel painted with the image of Christ. We are told that King Æthelberht, while wary of his visitors, did allow them to preach to the gathering.

King Æthelberht was most likely accompanied by his wife, Queen Bertha. Bertha was a Frankish princess who was already a Christian, despite her marriage to a pagan king. It is thought that the presence of Bertha may have been another reason for Augustine to begin his mission in Kent. She is known to have been in contact with the Pope around this time, and the fact that her husband allowed her to practise Christianity perhaps suggested that he might also be sympathetic to Augustine’s mission.

King Æthelberht did not immediately convert to Christianity, but he did treat Augustine and his companions with hospitality. They were given freedom to preach and invited to reside in Canterbury, the capital of Kent. Augustine and his companions held services in the ancient church of St Martin’s, which is believed to be the church that Queen Bertha herself worshipped in.

Eventually, King Æthelberht did convert, and the abbey of St Peter and Paul (later rededicated to St Augustine) was founded in Canterbury in about 598. Augustine became the first Archbishop of Canterbury, a role that to this day is still the most senior cleric in the Church of England.

There were many advantages for Augustine in gaining royal support for his mission. King Æthelbert’s gifts enabled the creation of a school and a library at the abbey, which in turn established it as an important seat of learning. Pope Gregory even sent books from Rome to fill the abbey’s bookshelves.

Æthelberht also provided protection to the new Christian church. He made laws that protected church property and punished transgressions against the Church even more harshly than those against the Crown. These charters may have been drawn up under the guidance of Augustine himself. Augustine was clearly a shrewd man who knew that royal support was essential if his mission was to be successful.

It is known that Augustine died on 26 May, though scholars still argue over whether the year was 604 or perhaps 609. Christianity continued to spread throughout the other English kingdoms in the years that followed St Augustine’s first mission, but its progression was not smooth. Not all of the successors to the converted Anglo-Saxon kings were Christian, including some of those that followed Æthelberht in Kent. The Christianisation of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms was finally completed at the end of the 7th century, when the Isle of Wight’s last pagan king, Aruald, died in 686.

It was Edgar (known as King Edgar the Peaceful) who became the first king to be coronated under the sacred auspices of the Church of England. When he was coronated in 973, this was the first time a king was coronated as king of England.  When his uncle Aethelstan had united the various kingdoms of Wessex, Mercia, Northumbria, and East Anglia, this was achieved over time, whereas Edgar came to power as King of a united England.

His coronation as King of England has become the model for coronations, and the oath he gave at his coronation in 973 is the oath still given by British monarchs upon their coronations. The oath required the king to carry out three duties: first, to protect the church and the peace of the land; second, to establish the rule of law and forbid criminally in all classes of subjects, even the nobles; and third, to use justice and mercy in all judgments, which is to say, to be impartial, fair, and not vindictive or cruel, nor to show favoritism or let friends off easily.

Edgar consolidated the unity of England established by his uncle (his father’s much-older half-brother) Aethelstan the Glorious (ruled 924-940) so that England never afterwards experienced a long-term division back into the minor kingdoms (of York, Northumbria, Mercia, Wessex, East Anglia, etc.) 

Edgar, lest we forget, was a great-grandson of Alfred the Great. Edgar was the father of Edward the Martyr (ruled 975-978) and Aethelred The Badly-Counseled (“Aethelred the Unready”, who ruled 978-1016). He was thus the grandfather of Edmund Ironside (ruled 1016) and Edward the Confessor (ruled 1042-1066). And then we get to William the Conqueror and 1066 and all that...

So in effect all that happened at the Reformation under Henry VIII is that the Church of England declared its independence from the Pope; its internal administrative structure remained the same.

Freed from Papal control, the Anglican Church went on to diverge in doctrine as well over the following years, though not as much as most other Protestant churches.

The coronation ceremony for British monarchs based on the rites first used to crown King Edgar in the year 973 continued to be used after Henry VIII’s time. 

The modern ceremony is not identical, of course; for one thing, it’s in modern English not Anglo-Saxon or Latin. However, each new version of the ceremony to crown a new monarch was based on the previous ceremony, in a direct chain of evolution.

The liturgy described in the Liber Regalis, written in the 14th century and itself based on earlier precedent, is still regarded as definitive. The mediaeval manuscript is kept in Westminster Abbey, the Anglican cathedral where most new monarchs have been crowned ever since 1066.

Interestingly, James VI of Scotland had the Liber Regalis translated into English for his own coronation in England in 1603, and subsequent coronations have drawn from it as their basis: though with variations and changes to suit their particular requirements. In the 20th century there was a movement to bring back more elements of the more ‘authentic’ early ceremony.

A ceremony which was first performed 1045 years ago and still follows the same basic format today surely qualifies as ‘ancient’ by most standards and doesn’t need ‘fancy intellectualising’.

Thanks for your question.

[portraitsofsaints]

Saint Gregory the Great 

Doctor of the Church

540-604

Feast Day: September 3 (New), March 12 (Trad)

Patronage: teachers, students, musicians, singers and England

St. Gregory the Great was Pope from 590 to 604 and is known for his contributions to the Liturgy of the Mass. He built 6 monasteries in Sicily and founded a seventh in his home in Rome. He is one of the four great Doctors of the Latin Church and the first monk to become Pope. Despite his bodily ails and the frightful times he lived in, it has been said that no teacher of equal eminence has arisen in the Church.

Prints, plaques & holy cards available for purchase here: (website)