There
is a story that Pope Gregory saw some fair haired blue eyed
people being sold as slaves in Rome. He was surprised because
they were so fair. He enquired about them and was told they were
Anglo-Saxons from England. He is supposed to have replied 'Not
Angles, but Angels'. However, what is certain is that he felt
these Anglo-Saxons should know about Christianity. He sent a
monk, Augustine, with forty others on a perilous journey from
Rome to England to set about preaching the Christian Gospel.
It was a long, hard journey and Augustine wanted to turn back,
but Gregory refused. Augustine and his companions arrived in
England at a place called Ebbsfleet in Kent, and were met by the
Saxon King and Queen of Kent who made them welcome. In fact the
Queen was already Christian, and, inspired by Augustine's teachings,
the rest of the court and the ordinary people were baptised.
Augustine set up a church in Canterbury, and from there the new
Christian faith spread rapidly in the south, and he himself became
the first Archbishop of Canterbury.
St Columba:
Columba
was born a royal prince in Donegal in the north-west of
Ireland. He was a great scholar, and became a monk. It was said that
he was very tall and athletic, with a voice 'so loud and melodious, it
could be heard a mile off'. He spent 15 years preaching in Ireland and
founded monasteries, the most important of which was at Derry. He was
accused of starting a war between his own clan and that of his king when 3 000
people were killed. Columba vowed to exile himself from Ireland until he had
brought the same number of people that had been slain
in the battle, 3 000, to Christianity.
He set off in 563 with 12 of his family in a leather covered coracle and
landed on Iona, an island off the coast of Scotland. They settled there and
Columba built a monastery, and it became his headquarters for his missionary
journeys all over Scotland, although he did return to Ireland occasionally.
