Today (27 June) no British saints are listed, but a quick look at Miss Dunbar brings up two saints associated with the life of Ste Bathilde, Queen of the Franks, whose feast approaches: Ste Angadreme and Ste Bertille.

 

St. Angadresima (1), March 17, Oct. 14, June 27 (ANDRAGASIMA, ANDRAGASYNA; in French, ANGADREME, ANGAREME, or GADRON ; in the Martyrology of Salisbury, GAWDRYSYVE), V. + c. 695. Abbess of Oroer, near Beauvais. Patron of Beauvais. Represented marked with small-pox, carrying coals in her apron. Daughter of Robert, keeper of the seals under Clothaire III., and his mother ST. BATHILDE. Robert betrothed Angadresima to Ansbert or Austrebert, son of Swivin, lord of Vexin. As both Ausbert and Angadresima wished to remain unmarried from religious motives, they agreed that, if compelled by their parents to marry, they would pray to be preserved from any love for or human interest in each other ; Angadresima also prayed that she might lose whatever was attractive in her. She was soon afterwards dreadfully disfigured by smallpox or leprosy, which she regarded as a good excuse for breaking off her engagement without disobeying her father. Robert now took her to Ouen to receive the religious veil from St. Ouen, the bishop. Not long after her profession she was ordered to bring some live coals to light the candles. She brought them in her apron, which was not burnt ; this miracle is represented in her pictures. She soon became the spiritual mother of many nuns, whom she edified and governed for 30 years, in an abbey which her father built for her at Oroer, near Beauvais. Her life is gathered from that of St. Ansbert, who was to have been her husband. (AA.SS. Baillet. Bucelinus. Cahier.) In 1473, in the reign of Louis XI., the city of Beauvais was miraculously defended against the Burgundian army by this saint ; and ever after, on her festival, women and girls took precedence of men in the procession. Monstier, Gynecseum, March 27.

Tropaire à sainte Angadrême, higoumène, (Natalice eu 695 A.D.) Ton 5

Tu voulus imiter ton parent saint Lambert*
Qui menait la vie monastique à Fontenelle,*
Ton père te construisit donc un monastère*
Où tu servis le Christ sans discontinuer.*
Sainte Angadrême de l’Oratoire, prie Dieu*
Pour qu’Il accorde à nos âmes grande mercy!

Troparion: Claude Lopez-Ginisty, ici

St. Bertilla (3), or BERTILANA, Nov. 5, and Juno 27, V. + 692 or 702. Abbess of Chelles. Patron of Chelles, Jouarre, and perhaps of Marolles. It is more likely that it is by confounding her with her contemporary BERTILLA (2) that she has been called patron of Marolles. Invoked against goitre, swellings, sore throats, diseases of horses, storms, hernia in children. She was a member of a noble family at Soissons, in the reign of Dagobert I. Her parents at first opposed her vocation, but afterwards placed her in the monastery of Jouarre, near Meaux, newly founded by St. Ado, brother of her friend and adviser St. Owen, and where ST. TEUTEHILD was abbess. Bertilla acquitted herself so well that she was chosen prioress, and when Queen BATHILDE refounded the monastery of Chelles on the Marne, she begged St. Teutehild to send Bertilla and a few nuns to establish the new community. Bertilla was the first Abbess of Chelles, and ruled for forty-six years, during which ST. BATHILDE, queen of France, took the veil there. The English queen, ST. HERESWITHA, was probably a nun there when Bertilla arrived. Under Bertilla, Chelles became one of the famous schools of piety to which English ladies resorted when they wanted to be trained in monastic life ; some remained there, and some, after a time, returned to teach their countrywomen, and to plant in England new gardens of living trees bearing the fruit of good works. Bertilla was ambitious of martyrdom, but as no persecutors were forthcoming, she martyred herself with austerities. It is related that a nun spoke unkindly to her in a moment of ill temper. Bertilla did not answer, but prayed that God would judge between them. A few days afterwards the nun died. Bertilla, fearing that her imprecation might have brought this judgment, entreated the dead woman’s forgiveness. Thereupon the nun came to life, and said that she forgave Bertilla, and that God had forgiven them both. She then closed her eyes again in death. Butler, Lives. Baillet, Vies. Bucelinus, Men. Ben., June 27. Menard, Mart. Ben., Nov. 4. Giry, Dict. Hag.

Tropaire à sainte Bertille, higoumène de Chelles, (Natalice en 602 A.D.) Ton 1

Conseillé sagement par l’évêque saint Ouen,*
Tu renonças à la vie futile du monde,*
Et tu fus moniale au monastère de Jouarre.*
Et quand l’abbaye de Chelles fut réouverte,*
Tu fus désignée pour en être l’higoumène.*
Sainte Bertille prie Dieu pour notre salut!

Troparion: Claude Lopez-Ginisty, ici

Saint-mères Angadrême et Bertille, priez pour nous!

Today (24 June) is the Feast of the Nativity of St John the Forerunner and Baptist, cousin of Jesus, ascetic, baptizer of Christ, one of the greatest saints in the calendar. Here is an address by Fr Andrew at orthodoxengland. I think I’ve mentioned before the lovely, lovely cartoon films made from original 1960s audio recordings of Dublin schoolchildren – small ones – telling Bible stories, recently rediscovered and released as ‘Give Up Yer Aul Sins.’ Several are available on Youtube and well worth a listen, including this one about the birth of St John the Baptist. 

Today is also the feast of St Germoc (Germoe) of Cornwall. Dr Baring-Gould thinks this is St Germanus Mac Guill, a bishop. celt-saints puts this saint, as Germoe, on 23 June. So I should have carried on with St John the Forerunner after all. I hardly like to include the usual line at the end of this post – talk about a doubting prayer! I refuse to address even so much to St Whoever-you-are.

celt-saints
St Germoe Church
a bit more about the church

Holy saints of Cornwall, pray to God for us.

icon image from WSIP; image by the hand of E. Bakalarz

Today (23 June) we commemorate St. Etheldreda (Audrey, AEthelthryth), foundress of Ely Abbey, Virgin (679). From Miss Dunbar:

St. Ethelreda, June 23 (Edeldrud, Elidru, Etheldreda, Aetheldryth, Edilthryda, Etheldrita, Ediltrude, Audrey, Awdry). 636-679. Queen of Northumbria. First Abbess of Ely. Daughter of Anna, king of the East Angles (635-654). Represented with the emblems of royalty, and of her rank as abbess, sometimes with a book, and sometimes a crown of flowers, or crowned, with a crosier and budding staff. At Ely Cathedral, lantern columns represent her asleep, her head in a nun’s lap, a book in her hand, with a tree blossoming above her. Anna was of the family of the Uffings, descendants of Odin. He was a Christian, and did much for the conversion of his own kingdom, and that of Wessex, his chief enemy being the savage Penda, heathen king of Mercia.

St. Ethelreda was the third daughter of Anna, by his wife St.Hereswitha, though some authorities say that St. Hereswitha was married to Ethelhere, Anna’s brother. Anna’s family of daughters were famous for their piety, namely, St Ethelburga, St Sexburga, St Etheldreda and St Withburga. Ethelreda was born at Exning, or Erming, in Suffolk, and was brought up in an atmosphere of piety. It was her ambition to be a nun like her sisters, but she was destined not to attain this goal until she had been twice married. In 652, she was given against her will to Tombert, or Tondbrecht, prince or ealdorman of the Girvii, an East Anglian people settled in a place that now forms part of Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire, and Lincolnshire. Tombert gave his wife as a settlement an estate then called Elge, and afterwards Ely. Tombert, either respecting and sympathizing with her monastic vocation, or regarding her with indifference, allowed her to live as a nun during the three years of their marriage. During that time occurred (in 654) the defeat and death of King Anna by Penda, and he was succeeded by his brother Ethelhere.

After the deaths of her husband and father, Ethelreda settled on her own estate of Ely, intending to spend the rest of her life in religious retirement. But in 600, for family reasons, probably to secure for the house of the Uffings the alliance of the powerful kingdom of Northumbria, against the aggressions of

the Mercians, she married Egfrid, second son of Oswy, king of Northumbria, by ST. EANFLEDA, daughter of Edwin and ST. ETHELBURGA.

At the time of his marriage, Egfrid was little more than a child. Ethelreda won his esteem and affection at once, and rapidly acquired a purifying and ennobling influence over him. He “held her as a thing enskied and sainted;” he sat at her feet, and learnt wisdom and self-denial from her, and he assisted her in her good works.

While Ethelreda was queen of Northumbria, she delighted in the society of monks and nuns, and took care to invite and attract to her house such of them as were most distinguished for learning and piety. Among these was St. Cuthbert, the young prior of Lindisfarne. She bestowed many gifts from her private property on his monastery, and desiring to give him also a token of her regard for himself, and to be specially remembered in his prayers, she made and embroidered with her own skilful fingers a stole and a maniple, that he might wear her gift only in the presence of God, and be reminded of her while offering the holy sacrifice.

In 670, at the age of twenty-four, Egfrid ascended the throne of Northumbria. Immediately the Scots and Picts, who owed him service and tribute, despising his youth, rebelled, and the pious Wulfere of Mercia, with hereditary jealousy of the neighbouring kingdom, attempted to subjugate it. Egfrid, however, reduced the northern rebels to submission, and then turned his arms against the Mercians, who, instead of annexing Northumbria, were themselves annexed by that state. Egfrid, after a time, restored the kingdom to Ethelred, the brother of Wulfere, who had married ST. OSTHRIDA, Egfrid’s sister. St. Wilfrid was the friend and adviser of the king and queen, Egfrid and Ethelreda. Ethelreda gave him the lands of Hexham which Egfrid had given her, and there Wilfrid built the fairest church that existed north of the Alps, after he had already rebuilt the Cathedral of York, and done much to improve and beautify his monastery of Ripon.

Meantime, Egfrid, who had been the humble adorer of his beautiful wife for twelve years, had arrived at the age of passions, and his affection had, grown to a love that could no longer be satisfied with worship at a distance. He had hitherto consented to let her live in his house like a nun in her convent, but now that he was a man and a king, with the pride of success in war, and with more knowledge, wealth, and power, he demanded one thing more of Fate and of Ethelreda. He entreated Wilfrid to use his influence to induce her to become in fact what as yet she had been only in name. He promised Wilfrid great things for himself and for his churches, should he be able to persuade the queen that her duty to God was her duty to her husband. Wilfrid feigned to enter into the king’s view of the matter, but, in fact, he steadfastly encouraged the queen to persist in her celibate life, and even advised her to ask permission to leave tie court and become a nun. Few persons of the present day will approve of the conduct of Wilfrid in this matter, but none of his contemporaries seem to have thought him worthy of anything but praise. Egfrid never forgave him. After many painful scenes, an unwilling consent was wrung from Egfrid, no sooner given than repented. But before he could give orders to the contrary, Ethelreda had fled to Coldingham beyond the Tweed, where ST. EBBA (1) was abbess, she was sister of the late king Oswy, and aunt of Egfrid.

Egfrid found life intolerable without Ethelreda, and determined to bring her back with or without her consent. St. Ebba heartily sympathized with Ethelreda, but seeing that should Egfrid insist  reclaiming his wife resistance would be impossible, advised her to escape from Coldingham in the disguise of a beggar. Ethelreda did this, attended by two of the nuns from Coldingham, SS. SEWARA and SEWENNA. She did not go to her aunt, ST. HILDA, at Whitby, as she would have opposed anything advised by Wilfrid, but decided to go back to her own lands at Ely. Many stories are told of her adventures on the journey, and they have often been the subject of sculpture and painted glass in the English monastic churches.

On the first day of her flight, Ethelreda was all but overtaken by her husband. She arrived at a headland, Colbert’s Head, jutting into the sea, and her pious intention was protected by the tide, which at once rose to an unusual height around the rock, making the place inaccessible to her pursuers. Egfrid resolved to wait till the ebbing waters should leave the path open to him, but instead of going down in a few hours, the waters remained at high tide for seven days. The baffled pursuer then realized that a power greater than his had taken Etheldreda and her vow under His protection, so gave up the idea of compelling her to come back to him, and returned home.

Another miraculous incident is recorded of her flight. One very hot day. as she was travelling on foot, overpowered with fatigue, she stuck her staff into the ground, and lay down to rest on the open plain. When she awoke, the staff had put forth leaves and branches and it afterwards became a mighty oak tree, larger than any other for many miles around. At length, after many days of weary walking, the saint arrived on her own lands of Ely. Here there was a piece of good, firm, rich land, supporting six hundred families, and surrounded to a great distance by fens, forming a more formidable rampart than walls or plain water would have done.

Here, in 673, Ethelreda built one of those large double monasteries which were so famous and so important in the early days of the English Church. Wilfrid, who never lost sight of his old friend, made her abbess, and gave the veil to her first nuns. He obtained special privileges for her from the Pope, and often visited her, and helped her with advice and suggestions useful in the management of her large establishment. Hither came many of her friends and relations to live under her rule, or to place their daughters in her care. Hither came many holy men and priests to take her for their spiritual guide. Many of her old friends and courtiers followed her and her example. Her devoted steward, Oswin, who had been in her service from childhood, and did not care to remain in the outer world without her, recognizing his own unfitness for study and meditation, carried his spade to St. Chad at Lichfield, and begged, not for repose, but for labour. “You shall read in your cell,” said he, “and I will dig for you.”

Ethelreda ruled over her monastery for seven years, setting a great example of piety and abstinence, and all other monastic virtues. Though such a great lady, and so delicately reared, she never wore any linen, but only rough woollen clothing. She denied herself the use of the warm bath, a luxury much in use among the English in her time, only permitting herself this indulgence at the four great festivals of the year, and even then she only used the bath that had already served for the other nuns.

Among the kindred princesses who were attracted by Ethelreda’s good qualities and the fame of her holiness, was her sister, ST. SEXBURGA, queen of Kent, who, leaving her own foundation of Sheppey, came and put herself under the rule of Ethelreda, and at her death, in 679, succeeded her as abbess.

Ethelreda died of a quinsy, which she regarded as a punishment for her former love of dress, and, in particular, for having worn jewels on her neck. An incision was made in her throat by a surgeon, who afterwards swore to the healing of the wound after death.

Ethelreda is one of the most popular of English saints, and there are more dedications in her name in England than in that of any female saint of the early Anglo-Saxon Church. Her day is June 23, the anniversary of her death.

In 696, St. Sexburga had her body taken from its tomb, where it was found, not only undestroyed, but with a youthful freshness which had long departed from the face of the living Ethelreda. Many miracles were wrought at her tomb, and at those of her successors, who were princesses of the same family, and the abbey of Ely was for many years very famous and very rich. It was constituted a cathedral in 1109, the abbot and bishop being thenceforth one person.

The life and merits of Ethelreda were the favourite study of medieval writers, and many notices of her are still extant.

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Service of commemoration to St Etheldreda (Audrey) of Ely from orthodoxengland

Ely Cathedral

wikipedia

Troparion Tone VIII:

In thee the Image of God was preserved, O noble Audrey, for thou didst take up thy cross and follow Christ. Royal virgin, thou didst teach the multitude by thine example that the flesh is to be scorned as fleeting, while the soul needeth great care as immortal. Wherefore, O holy Audrey, thou dost now make glad with the angels.

Holy St Etheldreda, pray to God for us.

Images of this icon and many others at WSIP

Today (22 June) we commemorate St Alban, protomartyr of England. From Dr Baring-Gould – this is going to be a bit long but it gives an unusual amount of information about the earliest sources for Alban’s veneration and the details of his life:

[Martyrology of Bede ; those of Hrabanus, Usuardus, Ado, Notker, &c.  Roman Martyrology, Gallican, German, Sarum, and York, but Modern Anglican Reformed Kalendar on the 17th, occasioned by a mistake of printer, XXII. having been altered into XVII. Authorities: Gildas, or rather the author of the De Excidio Britannicae, called Gildas by Bede. This work was supposed by Dr. T. Wright, ” Biographia Britannica Literaria,” 1842, to have been a forgery by a Saxon priest, who wrote it with the idea of using the writings of a British priest as an argument against the purity of that native church, which the Roman party were bent on upsetting or forcing into Roman obedience. This view has now been abandoned.

Gildas belonged to the Roman party in the Celtic Church which strove to stamp out national peculiarities, and it is certainly a genuine treatise. The British retreating before the Saxons would carry with them the tradition of the martyrdom of S. Alban. That S. Alban’s memory had not died out appears from the fact of S. Germain, on his visit to Britain, collecting earth stained, or supposed to be stained, with his blood. [Constantius, Vit. Germani I. 25 (a.d. 473, 493)]Venantius Fortunatus, who died in 609, mentions S. Alban in one of his hymns. The story as given by Gildas contains an inaccuracy. He makes the “noble river Thames” flow by Verulam. As Bede tells it, it contains several improbabiliiies, and presents chronological difficulties ; for whilst the persecution of Diocletian lasted, under which S. Alban is stated to have suffered, Britain was first alienated from the Roman empire by Carausius and Allectus, and was then under Constantius Chlorus. It is difficult to believe that Constantius would sanction a bloody persecution in his dominions, but it is not improbable that local persecutions under severe governors may have broken out. Gildas’s general statement respecting the persecution by Diocletian rests, as is usual with him, upon an unauthorised transference to the particular case of Britain of the language used by Eusebius (Lib. viii., c. 2) relating to the persecution in general, and is conclusively contradicted by Eusebius himself (viii. c. 13), who says that in Britain Constantius Chlorus “had no share in the hostility raised against us, but even preserved and protected those pioui persons under him free from harm and calumny, neither did he demolish the churches, nor devise any mischief against us.” Also Sozomen i. 6, and Lactantius, who also distinctly asserts that Constantius suffered no Christian to be killed, but adds, in contradiction to Eusebius, that he allowed the churches to be pulled down.

The individual case of S. Alban, however, rests upon a local tradition traceable apparently up to 429, the date of S. Germain’s first visit to Britain ; and perhaps the general assertions of Eusebius and the others may leave room for it, and for one or two other martyrdoms. Though Constantius Chlorus may have discouraged persecution himself, it is by no means improbable that local persecutions may have broken out under severe and bigoted magistrates. That S. Alban’s martyrdom, however, happened in the Diocletian persecution, rests only on the knowledge, or according to another reading, the guess (conjicimus for cognoscimus) of the pseudo-Gildas. And the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and the Liber Landavensis, although the latter still attributes it to that persecution, date it in 286. All that seems certain is, tliat within one hundred and twenty-five years after the last persecution, a belief existed at Verulam that a martyr named Alban lay buried near that town. If the persecution was that of Diocletian, the date must have been 304, that persecution beginning with the first edict of Diocletian in March 303, but extending to laymen only with his fourth edict in 304, and ceasing altogether in Britain upon his resignation in 305. In a book of the lives of the abbots of S. Alban’s to the time of Eadwar (circ. 970) it is said that among the ruins of ancient Verulam was found a stone chest containing a book written in characters only decipherable by an old monk named Unwyn, who found it to contain the Acts of S. Alban in ancient British. This was translated into Latin in the 12th cent, by William of S. Alban’s, at the request of the abbot Simon (d. 1188). These pretended Acts, an impudent forgery of William of S. Alban’s, perpetrated with the connivance of his abbot, purport to have been written by a British Christian in 590, when the Saxons had overrun the country and established paganism. In the prologue the author says : – ” I have not given my name, lest I should thereby forfeit both my name and my life.” That most worthless of historians, except as a collector of popular ballads and romances, Geoffrey of Monmouth, also mentions S. Alban, but does not tell his story fully. He also names “S. Amphibalus.”]

SAINT ALBAN, a pagan, received into his house and sheltered a Christian priest during the persecution of Diocletian, and was so struck by the devotion to God, and blameless life of the man whom he protected, that he placed himself under instruction and became a Christian. A rumour having reached the governor of Verulam, that the priest was hiding in the house of Alban, he sent soldiers to search it. Alban seeing them arrive, hastily cast the long cloak of the priest over his head and shoulders, and presented himself to the soldiers as the man whom they sought. He was immediately bound and brought before the governor. It fell out that the governor was then standing at the altar and was offering sacrifice. When the cloak was removed, which had concealed the face of Alban, and he perceived that the man was not the priest he had ordered to be arrested, his anger flamed hot, and he ordered Alban immediately to sacrifice or to suffer death.

S. Alban steadfastly refused to offer to idols. Then the magistrate asked, ” Of what family and race are you?” How can it concern thee to know of what stock I am?” answered Alban. “If thou desirest to know what is my religion, I will tell thee – I am a Christian, and am bound by Christian obligations.” “I ask thy name, tell it me immediately.” “I am called Alban by my parents,” he replied. “And I worship and adore the true and living God, who created all things.”

(The priest, whose name Bede does not give, was afterwards supplied by the fabricator of the spurious Acts with the name of Amphibalus. from the cloak which he wore, Amphibalus being the Greek for a cloak. Bede says that the priest did not suffer then, “his time of martyrdom had not yet come.” The forger gave him an absurd name, and invented the acts of his martyrdom. Under the name of Amphibalus this priest figures in some martyrologies on June 22nd with S. Alban, or alone on June 25th.)

Then the governor said, ” If thou wilt enjoy eternal life, delay not to sacrifice to the great gods.” Alban rejoined, ” These sacrifices which are offered to devils are of none avail. Hell is the reward of those who offer them.”

The governor ordered S. Alban to be scourged, hoping to shake his constancy by pain. But the martyr bore the stripes patiently, and even joyously, for our Lord’s sake. When the judge saw that he could not prevail, he ordered Alban to be put to death. On his way to execution, the martyr had to cross a river. “There,” says Bede, ” he saw a multitude of both sexes, and of every age and rank, assembled to attend the blessed confessor and martyr ; and these so crowded the bridge, that he could not pass over that evening. Then S. Alban, urged by an ardent desire to accomplish his martyrdom, drew near to the stream, and the channel was dried up, making a way for him to pass over.”

(This “river” is a stream, the Ver ; it runs between the present church and the site of Verulam. The miracle of drying up the river is an exaggeration. The Ver is nowhere unfordable, and in Midsummer is the merest brook. At the same time that S. Alban dried up the river, says Bede, he miraculously caused a fountain to spring up on the hill of martyrdom. This is probably Holywell, about half way between the abbey and Sopwell nunnery, in a field on the east side of the street called Holywell Hill. )

Then the martyr and his escort, followed by an innumerable company of spectators, ascended the hill now occupied by the abbey church bearing his name. It was then a green hill covered with flowers sloping gently down into the pleasant plain. Then his executioner refused to perform his office, and throwing down his sword confessed himself a Christian. Another man was detailed to deal the blow, and both Alban and the executioner who had refused to strike were decapitated together.

On the site of the martyrdom rose a church directly that peace was restored, which, though it must have fallen into ruins during the Saxon pagan domination, was restored when the Anglo-Saxons were converted, and stood in the days of Bade. Afterwards, in 793, Offa, king of the Mercians, founded there the stately abbey of S. Alban’s. At the time of the Danish invasions, the monks of S. Alban’s sent the body of the saint for safety to Ely, and when all fear of the Danes was over, reclaimed the body, but the monks of Ely refused to surrender it, whereupon they of S. Alban’s declared that they had never sent the true body of the saint to Ely, but another one ; and that the real relics were buried in a secret place at S. Alban’s. They proceeded at once to dig them up and enshrine them. The shrines of S. Alban, “S. Amphibalus,” and the martyred executioner, have lately been examined, and no traces of the relics were found ; they were scattered by the commissioners in the reign of Henry VIII.

The S. Alban venerated this day at Cologne is a different saint, though at Cologne it is pretended that the church of S. Alban in that city contains the relics of the English proto-martyr. (There can be no manner of doubt that this was a falsehood. The relics scattered at the Reformation in S. Alban’s were only those of the second S. Alban. ) This is not the only indictment against the monks there.

The relics of S. Alban at Cologne were brought from Rome in the year 989, and 2 Bede says, writing in 731, that in the church of S. Alban “to this day the healing of the infirm and the operation of cures does not cease to be famous,” although the localities had been forgotten before Offa built his monastery in 793 (Matt. Paris Vit. Off.) Thus, probably enough, the first relics were not genuine. It must be remembered also how scandalous was the forgery of the Acts of S Alban perpetrated in the same house later. The supposition that the relics of the proto-martyr of England were carried to Rome after their invention in 793 by King Offa, is destitute of all probability, though it is insisted on by Cologne historians. The S. Alban enshrined at Cologne was given by Pope John XI., to

the Empress Theophania, the wife of Otho II., on her visit to Rome in 989; but nothing is known of who this S. Alban was, and how he suffered.

In art S. Alban is represented sometimes in civil, and sometimes in military dress, bearing the palm and sword, or a cross and a sword.

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Well, I can’t answer for Dr B-G’s poor opinion of the monks of Cologne, but here is the story of the St Albans Psalter in images and as a German novel – Peter Dyckhoff’s Albani –Das unerhörte Abenteuer
Orthodox Wiki
calendar
Fellowship of St Alban & St Sergius – 80 years of dialogue in Britain between Orthodoxy and the Western Christian churches
Service of commemoration at orthodoxengland
an antiquarian article about St Alban and St Albans
wikipedia

Troparion to St Alban – Tone Four

Thou didst defend the persecuted priest, and thyself didst receive the message of salvation. Fearless before the judge thou didst proclaim: “My name is Alban and I serve the true and living God.” Thou didst become the first-fruit of our land; O holy martyr Alban pray unceasingly to God for the salvation of the world.

Holy Martyr Alban, pray to God for us.

Today (21 June) we commemorate St. Engelmund, abbot and missionary (ca. 739). Dr Baring-Gould dispenses with him briefly: ‘[Venerated at Haarlem, and in the diocese of Utrecht. Authority : — The Lections of the Haarlem Breviary.] S. Engelmund was an English Benedictine monk who came into Holland with S. Willibrord, and preached the faith. He was placed by S. Willibrord in charge of a church at Velsen, near Haarlem, and there he died of fever.’

Wikipedia
lots about Engelmund in Dutch
celt-saints
 

Holy Saint Engelmund, pray to God for us.

 

The icon image comes from the Monastery of St John of San Francisco

Today (20 June) I also want to join in the commemoration of St John the Wonderworker of Shanghai and San Francisco (1896-1966), a saint who is perhaps better known to us than St Edburga! Our own dear Fr Deacon Matthew (Steenberg), now Fr Irenei, is now at the Cathedral of the Holy Virgin Joy of all who Sorrow in San Francisco where St John’s relics are. He has a regular podcast, A Word From the Holy Fathers, on Ancient Faith Radio and is the author and moderator of monachos.net, among many other things! There are many lives of St John and I have linked to several below. What strikes me about his life is that the apparent contrast between his private ascetic life and his social and public life as a pastor, spiritual father and hierarch must in fact have fed each other. There is much more to say about that but I am more interested in finding out what he said about it.

This feast is timely – St John reposed in Seattle in the presence of the Kursk Root icon, which was so recently here in Oxford. I did not know that then!

– Holy Trinity Orthodox Calendar

– OrthodoxWiki

– Wikipedia

– St John of San Francisco Academy where Fr Irenei is principal

– a parish named for St John in Atlanta, Georgia, has a page about the history of icons of St John and also an akathist to him

Troparion to St. John in Tone 5

Lo, Thy care for thy flock in its sojourn / prefigured the supplication which thou dost ever offer up for the whole world. / Thus do we believe, having come to know thy love, O holy hierarch and wonderworker John. / Wholly sanctified by God through the ministry of the all-pure Mysteries / and thyself ever strengthened thereby,/ thou didst hasten to the suffering, O most gladsome Healer, // Hasten now also to the aid of us who honor thee with all our heart.

Holy St John, Wonderworker of Shanghai and San Francisco, pray to God for us.

Today (20 June) we commemorate St Edburgh of Caistor (7th century). From Miss Dunbar:

St. Edburga (3) June 20 (EDBURGH, IDBERGA, IDBERG, IDUBERG, ITISBERGA), V. 7th century. Daughter of Penda, heathen king of Mercia. One of four sainted sisters KYNEBURGA (1), KYNEDRIDE (1), and KYNESWITHA. They were all nuns at Dormundcaster, or Caister, otherwise called Kuneburgcaster, in Northamptonshire, [now Castor near Peterborough, in Cambridgeshire]founded by their brother Peada, c. 655. Their relics were translated to Peterborough, and part of them were carried, about 1040, from there to Berg St. Winnok, in Flanders, where the memory of St. Edburga is still honoured. Butler. Smith and Wace.

celt-saints

Holy Saint Edburga, pray to God for us.

Today (18 June) no British saints are listed, so I have turned to Miss Dunbar and come up with a humdinger. I probably shouldn’t describe her, or rather her story, or rather even the story of how she came to be venerated at all, that way. But I’m particularly pleased with this one because it follows on rather well from my recent witterings re what saints’ lives are for anyway, and Margaret’s comment about a saint’s veneration, e.g. at a shrine, being less about the details of the saint’s life than with the perception of prayers being received there. Here we have a rather different case…

St. Osanna (1) was perhaps the daughter of Aldfred and ST. CUTHBURGA, for she is said to have been the sister of Osred, king of Northumbria. Some writers place her a generation later, and some doubt her existence. She is not much heard of in early history. Attention having been drawn to her relics which were preserved in a church in the Netherlands, it was ascertained that she was a Northumbrian princess of the seventh or eighth century, and that her sanctity was first manifested a considerable time after her death, by a miraculous flagellation she inflicted from her grave, and by which she converted a sinner. She was buried in the church of Hoveden, or Howden in Northumberland, but no special veneration was paid her until one day the concubine of the rector went into the church, and thoughtlessly sat down on the tomb. Presently she found that she could not rise from her seat. She writhed, she wept, she struggled, she called her friends and they pulled and pushed and hurt her, and tore her clothes, and still she could not be moved from the stone where she sat. At length she perceived that a punishment had fallen on her, and that, she was thus called to repentance. She resolved with many tears to amend her life, and separate from the priest with whom she lived, and when she had made a vow to do so, she was able to leave her seat, but not before her dress was torn, and her skin marked with many strokes of discipline. She has no day, but her story is told by the Bollandists, June 18, on the authority of Geraldus Cambrensis, among the Praetermissi.

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– Historical Howden (ha) further elaborates that the attempt to free the unnamed concubine and the miraculous flagellation were conflated into a sound drubbing by townspeople who didn’t like that their priest had a concubine.

– the Wikipedia article includes a couple of links for sources about the interesting subject of clerical celibacy (and the lack of it, and the lack of requirement for it) in Anglo-Saxon times

– Howden Minster – beautiful church! one of the few that seems to use achurchnearyou for its own web page

Holy St Osanna, pray to God for us.

Today (17 June) we commemorate St. Nectan of Hartland, martyr (6th C). The icon image comes from WSIP, which does not provide any provenance information, but helpfully notes the following: ‘Also known as St. Nectaran or St. Nighton, this 6th century Saint was an Irish missionary who founded churches in Devonshire and Cornwall. His shrine at Hartland has been held in profound veneration for many centuries. According to one tradition, he perished by being beheaded by the hands of robbers. If this is so, he may more accurately be called a “Passion-Bearer” than a “Martyr” in the strictest sense.

‘The icon has this Latin inscription around the edges: “Nectane consors martirum / Ora pro nobis Dominum / Tuendo tuum populum / Et nunc et in perpetuum.” A metred translation into English is: “O Martyrs’ colleague, O Nectan, / Entreat the Lord in our behalf, / Keeping thy people safe and sound / Both now and for eternity.” ‘

From Baring Gould & Fisher:

 A REPUTED son of Brychan, according to the lists given by William of Worcester and Leland. His great foundation was at Hartland, Devon ; but he had other churches, at Wellcombe, where is his Holy Well, at Poundstock, where he has been displaced to make room for S. Neot, and at Ashcombe, in Devon. He had a chapel at Trethevy in Tintagel, and another at S. Winnow, which has been restored, and is still in use. Anciently there must have been one at Launceston, for a Nectan fair is there held on his day. There was also one at S. Newlyn.

The account of the Martyrdom of S. Nectan is in an extract from his Legend at Hartland, made by William of Worcester. He was fallen upon by robbers, at Nova Villa, i.e., New Stoke, where now

stands the church ; and his head was struck off. After which, he took up his head and carried it for the space of a stadium, a little over 600 feet, to the spring near which he had dwelt in his cabin, and then he placed it on a stone, which long remained dyed with his blood.

Nectan, or Nechtan, is not a Welsh name, nor even, originally, an Irish name, but is Pictish. (1 In Welsh it assumes the form Neithon, and occurs in Bede as Naiton. ) Nectan does not occur among the sons of Brychan given by the Welsh authorities.

The late Rev. R. S. Hawker, of Morwenstow, related, as a legend picked up by him there, that when Morwenna was dying, her brother Nectan came to minister to her, and she bade him bear her to the cliff, and turn her head so that with her dying eyes she might look towards Wales. But Mr. Hawker was a man of lively imagination, and the story may be merely ben trovato.

William of Worcester says that Nectan’s day is June 17. This is also Nectan’s day in the Exeter Calendar, in the Altemps Martyrology of the thirteenth century, and in a Norwich Martyrology of the fifteenth century [Cotton MS. Julius, B. vii). Curiously enough, the Irish Martyrologies give ” The Sons of Nectan ” on the same day. They are said to have been of Drumbric, but in what part of Ireland is not known, nor are their names recorded. Wilson, in his Martyrology, 1640, gives February 14, and for this he must have had some authority, as on this day a fair is held at S. Nectan’s Chapel, in S. Winnow. The feast at Hartland and at S. Winnow is on June 17.

S. Nectan’s Well is at Stoke, near Hartland Church.

A tradition exists at S. Winnow that S. Nectan lived at Coombe, a ruined farm near S. Nectan’s Chapel, and that he was martyred at Tollgate, some distance off.

S. Nighton’s (Nectan’s) Keive is a waterfall at Trethevy where was his chapel.

S. Nectan is represented on the tower of Hartland Church, and in the west panel of the Churchyard cross, as a Bishop.

Nicolas Roscarrock says : ” The Life of S. Nectane at the end of a booke very auntiently in the library of Martine Collidge in Oxford, which my learned and laborious friend Mr. Camden haveing took a briefe note of which he imparted to me, and when I importuned to gett me a coppie of the life at lardge which by report was not very longe, hee found att the second search that it was imbezled, being cutt out of the booke and carried away. … I have besides a manuscript that telleth me that the day of his feast is the 18th of May, and that he was a Martyr and buryed att the monastery of Hartland . . . and sonne to S. Brachan or Brechanus a great name of Wales, and this note following which I received off Mr. Camden my fore-named friende, and necessary I thinke to bee layde downe.” Then come the usual Life names of the children of Brechanus. The MS. was probably the same as that consulted by William of Worcester. Roscarrock adds that a bone of S. Nectan was reserved as a relic in Waltham Abbey.

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Wikipedia

texts for Commemoration of Nectan from orthodoxengland – o for an index!

celt-saints

Farmer

Today is also the main feast day of St. Botolph, abbot and confessor, of Boston, and his brother St. Adolph (680), about whom I posted in December on the feast of their translation.

Troparion of St Nectan tone 4

O holy Father Nectan, thou didst follow the bidding of the Lord/ and didst leave thy father and mother for His sake to embrace the hermit’s life./ Faithful follower of Christ unto death pray that He may save our souls.

Holy St Nectan, pray to God for us.

Today (16 June) we commemorate St. Cettin, bishop  of Oran (5th C).

from celt-saints: ‘(also known as Cethach, Cethagh). Saint Cettin was consecrated by Saint Patrick as an auxiliary bishop. Some authorities distinguish Cethagh and Cettin, but they appear to be the same person. His shrine at Oran was a pilgrimage centre for 13 centuries (Benedictines, Montague).’

I feel as though I am gradually filling in the hierarchical structure of the early Irish church. It’s a bit mechanical and impersonal when there seem to be no further details and I don’t have access to a copy of HP Montague’s Saints and Martyrs of Ireland (1981). This is an unscientific impression, but it seems to me that a) there are many fewer female saints b) those there are often have a few scraps at least of an interesting story attached. Why am I looking for stories anyway? The stories are personal, individual – am I falling into the very trap I have more than once deplored? The recent trend in ‘feminist’ scholarship on medieval mystics (male and female, but especially female) concentrates almost entirely on individual mystics who have strange visions, exhibit antisocial behaviour, do mad things like eat dirt and roll in broken glass, think they can fly, and do and say other things that were considered peculiar and dangerous in their own day. This kind of ‘thrill-seeking’ research is not usually grounded in a good understanding of the history and relevant norms of medieval spiritual life, and gives at best a deeply distorted view of ‘those funny people back then.’ That is not the kind of story I’m looking for in saints’ lives. I don’t need to concentrate on details of individuals’ stories. All we know about St Cettin and many others is that he said, ‘Here I am’ and did his job. Would details of his extraordinary exploits, miracles, missionary work, diplomatic advances to pagan kings, extreme asceticism, perfect charity etc have survived if he had been that sort of person (or one of those sorts of person)? Or if he had been a roistering heathen and then converted to a humble yet zealous bishop? Well, maybe they would. Perhaps he did not have strange adventures or turn the world upside down. Perhaps he was a good and faithful servant and that is all that needs to be said about him.

 

On the other hand somebody must have known something about him for his shrine to be venerated for 13 centuries. But perhaps not very much.

 

Holy St Cettin, Bishop of Oran, pray to God for us.