St. Augustine

Some say that our first Christian visitors landed in Britain in the year 37. Certainly the religion was being practised long before the missionary St. Augustine arrived from Italy in 597. He was sent by the Pope in a time when Europe was experiencing one disaster after another, prompting him to make a big push for conversion. For Britain he selected a senior Benedictine monk called Augustine to head an Italian monastic task force.

They arrived in Kent and acquired a piece of land at Canterbury on which they built two monasteries. One became Canterbury Cathedral and the other St. Augustine’s Abbey, where Augustine was buried seven years later. They found the inhabitants worshipping many gods, including Jesus. Augustine did not speak the language but, with advice and guidance from the Pope, he started to persuade people, including the king of Kent, to concentrate solely on the one Christian god.

After his death, worship of the other gods resurfaced, until the Norman Conquest of 1066. Nevertheless, St. Augustine is remembered not only as the first Archbishop of Canterbury but as the first missionary to stamp a Christian identity onto Britain.

(Image of ruins of St. Augustine’s Abbey: Arjen Bax at geograph.org.uk / CC BY-SA 2.0)