2. SAINT ADRIAN, ABBOT OF CANTERBURY

Our holy Father Adrian was a native of North Africa «well versed,» as the Venerable Bede says, «in the Holy Scriptures, trained both in monastic and ecclesiastical ways and equally skilled in the Greek and Latin tongues». He was living in the monastery of Nerida, near Naples in Italy, when Pope Vitalian called on him to accept the see of Canterbury. However, St. Adrian declined, saying he was unworthy of so exalted a rank, and suggested instead the elderly monk Theodore, a native of Tarsus in Cilicia. The pope accepted his suggestion, but only on condition that he accompanied St. Theodore to England. For, as Bede says, «he had already travelled twice through Gaul on various missions and was therefore better acquainted with the road and had an adequate number of followers; also, being a fellow labourer in his teaching work, he would take great care to prevent Theodore from introducing into the church over which he presided any Greek customs which might be contrary to the true faith [Bede probably means the Monothelite heresy then raging in the East]. So on May 27, 668 Saints Theodore and Adrian set off together for England. They went by sea to Marseilles and then by land to Arles. They were detained for some time in France by Ebroin, Mayor of the palace of Neustria, who suspected them of being agents of the Byzantine emperor. However, on May 27, 669 the two saints arrived in Canterbury.

St. Theodore immediately placed St. Adrian in charge of the monastery of St. Peter in Canterbury, where he taught Greek and Latin and all the ecclesiastical sciences, educating a whole generation of English churchmen. He reposed on January 9, 710, and his tomb was glorified by miracles. In 1091, when repairs were being carried out to the church buildings in Canterbury, his tomb was opened and his body was found to be incorrupt.

St. Adrian is commemorated on January 9.

Holy Father Adrian, pray to God for us!

(Sources: The Venerable Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People, IV, 1,2; David Farmer, The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978, p. 3)