23. SAINT BIRINUS, BISHOP OF DORCHESTER-ON-THAMES

Our holy Father Birinus was of Italian, or, according to some accounts, Irish origin. Early in the seventh century he was sent by the Pope to preach the Gospel in the inner parts of England where no teacher had been before. He was consecrated to the episcopate for this task by Archbishop Asterius of Milan.

Then he boarded a ship at Genoa for England. However, at that point he suddenly remembered that he had left on the seashore his antimins [a portable altar- cloth containing relics of the saints, upon which the Divine Liturgy is celebrated], without which he could not perform his apostolic ministry. But putting his faith in God, he boldly stepped out across the stormy waters, recovered the antimins on the seashore, and walked back to the ship, which stood as if immobilized in the middle of the sea. The sailors were astonished to sea that his vestments were not even wet.

Arriving on the coast of Hampshire in about the year 634, the saint discovered that many of the inhabitants were not Christian, so he decided not to travel further inland. An old woman who had been blind and deaf for several years was told in a vision to go to St. Birinus, and he healed her by making the sign of the Cross over her eyes and ears. Birinus then travelled to the court of King Cynegils of Wessex, who welcomed him and gave him permission to preach to the people.

In 635 King Cynegils and many of his people were baptized by Birinus in the ancient Roman town of Dorcec, now Dorchester-on-Thames, which became his episcopal see and the centre of his ministry. The king's sponsor at his baptism was none other than the future great Martyr-King Oswald of Northumbria. «Lovely indeed and well pleasing to God» was the relationship between the two kings, says Bede. St. Oswald gave his daughter to King Cynegils in marriage.

In 636 Birinus baptized King Cynegils» son, Cwichelm, at Dorchester, and in the same year Cwichelm reposed. In 639 the saint also baptized Cwichelm's son, Cuthred, and stood sponsor for him. But Cynegils» other son, Cenwalh, initially refused baptism, and became Christian, not through Birinus, but through St. Felix, bishop of Dunwich in East Anglia.

After the death of King Cynegils in 643, his successor asked Birinus to build a consecrate a minster church in Winchester, his capital.

Many churches in the Thames valley were founded by St. Birinus, including, perhaps, St. Mary's Minster in Reading, St. Helen's at Abingdon, and the parish churches of Taplow and Wing.

In 650 St. Birinus reposed and was buried at his episcopal see. In about 690, St. Hedda, bishop of Winchester, removed the relics to Winchester, and they were

translated into a new shrine by St. Aethelwold in response to a Divine vision on September 4, 980.

St. Birinus is commemorated on December 3 and September 4.

(Sources: the Venerable Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People; Nova Legenda Anglie, vol. 1, 118–122; David Farmer, The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978; Margaret Gallyon, The Early Church in Wessex and Mercia, Lavenham: Terence Dalton, 1980; Margaret Hancock, «St. Birinus and Dorchester Abbey», Catholic Life, November, 2007, pp. 36–38)