Æthelberht, Bertha and Augustine of Canterbury

Last week we finished a 7 day Pilgrimage to Canterbury. We thought we had finished when we arrived at the Cathedral for evensong; but we had a little surprise in store for us the next day.
We decided to visit the little church dedicated to St Martin on a little hill just outside the city walls.
What we discovered was the oldest Christian church in the English speaking world with a fascinating history.

Mary outside St Martins church

We had previously visited the underground Roman museum in the town where we saw some the Chi Ro symbol on some of the artifacts

Being a Christian was not a safe thing to advertise as the images are tiny or hidden underneath a cup or in a mosaic.

Certainly there was an active Christian community in Britain by the Diocletian persecution when brave Christians were martyred for example St Alban in about 305AD. Christianity persisted and there were three British bishops present at the council of Arles 314 AD; conditions having improved a year earlier by the Edict of Milan issued by Constantine the Great, which gave religious tolerance to Christians

However things went from bad to worse for British Christians with the retreat of the Romans from Britain and the invasion of the barbarian Saxons, Angles and Jutes about 409 AD.  

So Britain was divided up into smaller kingdoms ruled over by rival kings, including King AEthelbert of Kent. 

Æthelberht

In Kent there were strong trading links with the powerful Franks in continental  Europe, making a strong friend in the powerful Franks helped him gain dominance over other local kings so he could become  bretwalda over them.

So he married Bertha, princess of the Franks, daughter of Charibert King of Franks, the marriage settlement included provision for her to continue her Christian faith . 

Queen Bertha

She brought with her   Liudhard, her confessor and was able to restore an old Roman place of worship on a hill outside Canterbury's walls which is the present day St Martins.

At this point in the story enter Gregory of Rome . 

Legend has it that, before he became pope, he happened to see some Anglo-Saxon slaves for sale in a Roman marketplace. He asked about the race of the remarkable blond men and was told they were "Anglos." "Not Anglos, but angels," he was said to reply. As a result, it is said, Gregory was later inspired to send missionaries to England.

Devout and personally humble he would have happily led a contemplative life in his monastery, but was called by Benedict and then Pelagius II as a very capable administrator and ambassador to the Byzantine court. When a plague and famine swept Rome killing Pelagius he became pope taking the title," servant of the servants of God", for the first time.

 He was an able politician reorganising the Roman administration and releasing papal funds to ease the famine.  He came to the Roman city and church at a very difficult time, Lombards were invading Italy and he faced opposition from the Eastern church in Constantinople. Gaining the support of the German and Frankish tribes was important to him, and he still had a vision for the evangelisation of the Jutes,Angles and Saxon tribes in the south of England.  With the marriage of a Frankish Christian princess to a pagan king he saw an opportunity for the Gospel. 

So finally enter Augustine of Canterbury into our story. 

He was in the monastery of St Andrews Rome when he was ordered on his mission to England. It must have been very difficult to leave the protective walls of a monastery journeying through the Frankish tribes to the fierce kingdom of Anglo Saxon warriors. In fact he only got as far as a boat journey to Lerins in France that the enormity of his task overwhelmed him and he went scurrying back to Gregory. however Gregory would hear nothing of abandoning the mission and sent him back with some reinforcements, letters to various leaders along the way and on they travelled via Tours where they acquired some Frankish interpreters for the ongoing trip.
Finally the little band, of about 40 monks, arrived up the Wantsum channel which originally separated the isle of Thanet from Kent and asked for a meeting with Aethelbert, who was very suspicious of this little group despite the influence of his Christian wife, only agreeing to meet under the open skies of his Gods, for fear of treacherous sorcery. 

 “Augustine sent to AEthelbert to say that he had come from Rome bearing the best of news, namely the sure and certain promise of eternal joys in heaven and an endless kingdom with the living and true God to those who receive it.” Bede: Ecclesiastical History of the English People.

AEthelbert was attracted enough by Augustine's preaching and piety to allow him to form a base in his wife's church of St Martin.
As they approached the city they prayed a lament and confession, 

 “We pray Thee, O Lord, in all Thy mercy, that Thy wrath and anger may be turned away from this city and from Thy holy house, for we are sinners. Alleluia.”  (again Bede) 

Confession of sin is an essential precursor for any mighty move of the Holy Spirit.

The little group now with Bertha and some of the local british christians who had persisted and survived from the original pre-Saxon Roman church, settled down to a simple monastic but outgoing life of mission ,again according to Bede:
 "They were constantly at prayer; they fasted and kept vigils; they preached the word of life to whomsoever they could…They practiced what they preached, and were willing to endure any hardship, and even to die for the truth which they proclaimed.”

Image from the Latin Augustine Gospels

 They extended the little church in which the king was baptised after being finally converted.
With positive influence from the Kentish court as well as continuing help from the Christian Franks 
So the mission in the south flourished with the building of a great abbey and eventually the start of the Cathedral in the city centre.

    According to a letter of Gregory to the patriarch of Alexandria in 589 there were 10,000 baptised, surely the first great revival in England.