St. Augustine of Canterbury

May 27 is the feast of St. Augustine of Canterbury (d. 604), the apostle of the English and the first archbishop of Canterbury. A Benedictine monk of the monastery of St. Andrew on the Caelian Hill at Rome, he was sent by Pope Gregory the Great in 597 to evangelize the Anglo-Saxons, with forty monks. He landed at Ebbsfleet, in Kent, and was received by King Æthelberht, whose wife Bertha was already a Christian.

Augustine converted Æthelberht and thousands of his subjects; the king gave him the ruined Roman church of St. Martin at Canterbury, where Bertha had been worshipping, and the site of the present cathedral. Augustine was consecrated bishop at Arles and established his see at Canterbury, founding the cathedral and the abbey of Sts. Peter and Paul (later St. Augustine's). He died on May 26, 604, and was buried in the abbey.

Augustine is the apostle of England and the patron of the Anglican Communion's Catholic tradition. From Rome, where he was sent from, to Canterbury, where he established his see, the May 27 feast is the feast of the monk who became the apostle of the English.