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St. Augustine, Archbishop of
Canterbury, Apostle of the English
Feast day: May 26
The figure of St. Augustine,
the great Wonderworker and Apostle of the English people, is somewhat
controversial. He represented the Orthodox Patriarch of the West, the
Pope of Rome, whereas the Celtic Christians were without a Patriarch
and were, indeed, hostile to the concept of being placed under a
Patriarch! St. Augustine moreover committed a great faux-pas when in
meeting with a delegation of the anti-Patriarchal Bishops he remained
seated when they approached him, rather than rising to greet them or
even prostrating himself humbly before them. Due to his conduct,
springing either from a protocol the Celts misinterpreted or from
carelessness, he alienated them--and on this account the integration of
the non-English Christians of Britain into the Patriarchate was delayed
for many centuries. In the meantime, an uneasy situation prevailed. The
decision of St. Theodore of Tarsus, the Greek-bred Archbishop of
Canterbury who brought a comprehensive canonical structure to the
English Church, and of several Church Synods, was that the Celtics
could only be received after Chrismation and renunciation of error. It
was felt that their Baptism rite was incomplete, their method of
tonsure unsatisfactory, and their dating of Pascha, which had been
superseded elsewhere in Orthodox Christendom by the pan-Orthodox method
still used today in the Eastern Church, was faulty. Despite these
difficulties, certain Hierarchs accepted the Holy Mysteries of the
Celtics. St. Bede, in his History, proves himself to be a moderate in
his ecclesiology, both accepting their essential character as Orthodox
Christians and criticising their "uncanonical" mores.
Top Icon: by the hand of
Aidan Hart, Oecumenical Patriarchate, UK.
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Aidan Hart, UK.
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Gregory Abu-Asali, Buena Vista, Colorado.
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Bottom-most icon from
"Scriptorium Romanum," AMDG.
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