He is the
founder of the Church in southern
England,
which at that time was almost entirely pagan, though Christianity thrived in
the Celtic lands of
Ireland,
Wales and parts of
Scotland.
Augustine, a monk at the monastery of St Andrew in
Rome,
was chosen by Pope Gregory I to lead a mission to
England…
He and a
party of about forty monks landed in
England in 597; they were received
warmly by King Aethelbert, who was baptised by Augustine and thus became the
first Christian king of the Anglo-Saxon people. In 601 Pope Gregory made
Augustine Archbishop of Britain, and he established his cathedral at
Canterbury, where he also
established a monastery.
Saint
Augustine worked unsuccessfully to unite his churches
with those of the Irish monks and hierarchs, who followed different liturgical
practices, kept a different date of Pascha, and disapproved of the less severe
Roman monastic practices introduced by the Archbishop. He reposed in peace.
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