60. SAINTS HEDDA, FRITHESTAN AND BIRNSTAN, BISHOPS OF WINCHESTER

Our holy Father Hedda was educated at Whitby and became a monk and an abbot. In 676 he was consecrated bishop of Winchester by St. Theodore, archbishop of Canterbury. The Venerable Bede wrote that «he was a good and just man, and exercised his episcopal duties rather by his innate love of virtue, than by what he had gained from learning.» He had a great influence over Kings Caedwalla and Ina of Wessex, both of whom became monks in Rome. King Ina acknowledged his help in framing his code of laws, which later were incorporated into the code of King Alfred, the real founder of the All-English State.

St. Hedda died in 705, and many miracles took place at his grave, as Bishop Plechthelm of Whithorn witnessed. (According to William of Malmesbury, the miracles had ceased by his time in the twelfth century). So much dust was taken from the place where he died for the healing of men and animals that a large hole was created there.

The relics of the saint are still to be found in the see of Winchester, which he founded.

St. Hedda is commemorated on July 7.

Holy Father Hedda, pray to God for us!

Our holy Father Frithestan was one of seven bishops consecrated in one day by Archbishop Plegmund of Canterbury in the year 909. He ruled his see until 931. The saint donated a stole of Byzantine iconography to St. Cuthbert's. It was found in St. Cuthbert's coffin and can still be seen at Durham. After his death, it is said, his tomb could not hide his holiness.

St. Frithestan's feastday is September 10.

Our holy Father Birnstan (Birstan, Beornstan) succeeded St. Frithestan as Bishop of Winchester in 931. His usual routine was to celebrate the Divine Liturgy, then attend to the poor, washing them and giving them food, and then pray in solitude for several hours. At night he would go round the cemetery praying for the souls of the reposed. Once, after praying: «May they rest in peace,» he heard a voice as if of an infinite army of spirits replying: «Amen». He reposed while praying in solitude in 934, and was more or less forgotten for about forty years.

One night, St. Aethelwold, Bishop of Winchester, was working in front of the holy relics of his diocese when three people appeared to him. The middle of these then said: «I am Birnstan, formerly bishop of this city. Here,» he said, indicating the man on his right, «is Birinus, the first preacher. And here,» he said, indicating the man on his left, «is Swithun, the special patron of this church and community. You should know that just as you see me here with them now, so I enjoy no unequal glory with them in Heaven. Why then am I deprived of the honour of men, when I am magnified in the assembly of the celestial spirits?»

St. Birnstan is commemorated on November 4.

Holy Fathers Heddi, Frithestan and Birnstan, pray to God for us!

(Sources: Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People, III, 7, IV, 12, V, 18; William of Malmesbury, Gesta Pontificum Anglorum; David Farmer, The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1978, pp. 43–44, 162, 187)