[Romans 5:1-10 / Matthew 6:22-33]
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Dear Fathers, brothers and sisters: Spraznecom! Happy Feast!
So, on this Third Sunday of Pentecost, after celebrating the full panoply of saints throughout the whole of the Church Triumphant, and then, last week, celebrating the saints like our dear Vladyka St John who shone forth from the land of Rus and that come from our immediate spiritual home the Russian Church Abroad, we finally come now, on to celebrate our dearest local saints, the saints of these islands, shores, meadows, valleys and mountains, the saints of the British Isles. Due to our very late Pascha this year we celebrate our joyous Feast of the Saints of our own land, very close to the Feast of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and the day after the Synaxis of the 12 Holy Apostles. This alignment of the feasts of the British Saints and the Holy Apostles is especially appropriate as it remind us of the Apostolicity of the Orthodox Faith in these Isles. Although in the Land of Rus, seeds of Holy Orthodoxy may have been first planted by the preaching and mission of the Apostle Andrew, it wasn’t until the coming of Sts Cyril and Methodius, the Apostle of the Slavs, in the 9th C that we have a continuous stream of Orthodox saints in the land of Rus. However, in the case of the British Isles there has been a continuous stream of Orthodox saints from the very Apostles themselves right up until the 11th Century, when this stream of living water finally dries up. For my homily this morning, in the afterglow of the Feast of the Apostles, I would like to reflect more on the Apostolic origins of Christianity in the British Isles.
There is a tradition that Christianity was brought to the British Isles by the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul themselves who both preached here. The tradition holds that St. Peter founded a church “in the west” of London which was a predecessor of what is now Westminster Abbey, while St. Paul erected a church “in the east”, which was a predecessor of what is now St. Paul’s Cathedral on Ludgate Hill. Whilst there is relatively little direct corroboration for St Peter’s possible missionary journey to Britain, there is more plausibility in St Paul coming to these shores. Certainly, we know from the epistle to the Romans, (15:26/28) that St Paul had plans to visit Spain and it is certainly possible, that from there he could have easily taken a ship to Britian. We also do find some direct reference in the Fathers to St Paul’s missionary journey here. In the epistle of Apostolic Father St Clement, pope of Rome, we can thus find a tantalizing reference to St Paul’s journeying to the ‘farthest limits of the west” –
“After he had been seven times in chains, had been driven into exile, had been stoned, and had preached in the east and in the west, he won the genuine glory for his faith, having taught righteousness to the whole world and having reached the farthest limits of the west. Finally, when he had given his testimony before the rulers, he thus departed from the world and went to the holy place, having become an outstanding example of patient endurance.”
Could the “farthest limits of the west” have been an allusion to the British Isles that were often regarded as the very end of the known civilized world? We have to wait until the 4th Century to find the most explicit reference to St Paul’s preaching in Britain from Theodoret Bishop of Cyzicus, in Syria who wrote that –
“Paul, liberated from his first captivity at Rome, preached the Gospel to Britons and others in the West. Our fishermen and publicans (the Disciples) not only persuaded the Romans and their tributaries to acknowledge the Crucified and His laws, but the Britons also and the Cimbri (Cymry).”
In the 6th century Venantius Fortunatus, Bishop of Poitiers, the well-known Christian hymnographer, speaks of St. Paul, “crossing the ocean” and visiting “Britain and the extreme West”.
The reference from St Theodoret of St Paul’s preaching to the Cymry – the Welsh – also finds some further support in a very ancient tradition assigns the foundation of Bangor Abbey (in Britain) to St. Paul. Its rule was known as the “Rule of Paul.” The Abbots claimed to be his successors. Over every gate of the Abbey was Paul’s command, “If any will not work, neither shall he eat.” (A paraphrase from II Thess. 3:10).
So much for St Paul, what of the other Apostles in the British Isles? Amongst the 12 disciples we have some significant patristic authority that St Simon the Zealot also came to Britain and was martyred here. St Simon was surnamed the Zealot, or the Canaanite, to distinguish him from Simon Peter. By tradition he was the Bridegroom at the wedding in Cana where our Lord worked his first miracle. After witnessing this miracle, and by agreement, St Simon left his wife and followed Christ, it was perhaps for this reason that he was known as the zealot, rather than that he belonged to the Zealots as in the 1st century Jewish political sect. St Hippolytus of Rome, writing in the early 3rd century states that St Simon came to Britain in AD 44 during the Roman occupation. St Dorotheus of Gaza, the great monastic Father of the late 6th century, wrote that not only did St Simon come to Britain but that he was martyred here. This was further corroborated in the 9th century by St Nikephoros I, Patriarch of Constantinople who writes:
Simon born in Cana of Galilee who for his fervent affection for his Master and great zeal that he showed by all means to the Gospel, was surnamed Zelotes, having received the Holy Ghost from above, travelled through Egypt, and Africa, then through Mauretania and all Libya, preaching the Gospel. And the same doctrine he taught to the Occidental Sea, and the Isles called Britanniae.
In the Greek Menaion, the Lives of the Saints, we also find more specific reference to St Simon being martyred here in the Eastern parts of Britain in the first year of the Boadicean War and was crucified in the vicinity of Caistor under Caius Decius on May 10th, 61AD. This Caistor is not either of our local Caistors – Caistor St Edmund, near Norwich, nor Caister-on-Sea near Great Yarmouth – but Caistor in the West Lindsey district of Lincolnshire. As its name implies, the town of Caistor, from the Latin castrum, has significant Roman history and was the probable site of St Simon’s martyrdom in some traditions by crucifixion whilst in others by being sawn in half.
I am not aware of any other tradition of one of other 12 Apostles coming to Britain, however, we do have traditions that from amongst the seventy apostles both St Jospeh of Arimathea as well as St Aristobulus came and laboured in this country. Although undoubtedly colourfully inflated by medieval legend, there is certainly some credence to the ancient West country tradition, that St Joseph of Arimathea came to this country after the Burial and Resurrection of Christ. This is attested by St Hippolytus of Rome, who identifies the seventy whom Jesus sent in the Gospel of Saint Luke, and includes Saint Aristobulus listed in Romans 16:10 with Saint Joseph and states that he ended up becoming a missionary in England. There are a multitude of legends surrounding this that after traveling across the perilous marshes of Somerset, the St Joseph together with thirteen holy companions crossed the water to Glastonbury, coming at last to a hill which tradition still shows today, called Weary-All. As was the custom, the saint carried a pastoral staff of dry hawthorn. When he stopped to rest, he stuck the staff into the ground where it blossomed as a sign of God’s favour. The miraculous staff soon grew into a great tree, which continues to blossom to this day during Holy Nativity. In fact, official records show that after England adopted the Gregorian Calendar the Glastonbury Thorn continued to blossom on the Church Calendar date for Nativity. Here at Weary-All Hill the saint’s party was met by a local chieftain, who, being impressed by the piety, gentleness, and meekness of Saint Joseph, donated twelve ‘hides’ of land to the group (approximately 160 acres). Here, on the Twelve Hides of Glastonbury, St Joseph is believed to have founded a church of wattle and daub which he dedicated to the Most Holy Theotokos. Certainly the Church as Glastonbury is very old indeed and was a site of ancient Celtic veneration.
As for the other Apostle of the seventy, St Aristobulus, we find explicit mention of him in the Epistle of the Apostle Paul to the Romans where in chapter 16:10 he says “Greet those of the household of Aristobulus.” St Hippolytus of Rome identifies St Aristobulus as one of the seventy apostles sent by Christ as described in chapter 10 of St Luke’s Gospel. He is considered to be the brother of the Apostle Barnabus of Jewish Cypriot origin. St Hippolytus also asserts that Aristobulus was the first bishop of Britain a claim that is also corroborated by St Dorotheus Bishop of Tyre and is recorded in the Greek Menaion. Saint Nikodemos the Hagiorite, in the 18th century, whose memory we also celebrate today, writes that the then inhabitants of Britain were a “beastly and savage people” and “from them (the Saint) sometimes was beaten, sometimes dragged through the marketplace and with other similar torments and tortures he managed to bring many to faith in Christ.” According to some traditions, St Aristobulus was martyred in Roman Britain whilst in other traditions he was martyred in Wales.
Through their preaching, holy example and by their sacred blood, the Apostles from the 12 as well as the 70 gave solid and sanctified foundations to the establishment of Christianity in these blessed, God-preserved Isles. The early Church writer and polemicist, Tertullian (AD 155-222) in the 2nd Century boasted that,
All the limits of Spain, and the diverse nations of the Gauls, and the haunts of the Britons–inaccessible to the Romans, are now subjugated to Christ.
Eusebius, (AD 260-340) Bishop of Caesarea and father of ecclesiastical history wrote:
The Apostles passed beyond the ocean to the isles called the Britannic Isles
The same is said by Saint John Chrysostom (AD 347-407):
The British Isles which are beyond the sea, and which lie in the ocean, have received virtue of the Word. Churches are there found and altars erected … Though thou shouldst go to the ocean, to the British Isles, there though shouldst hear all men everywhere discoursing matters out of the scriptures, with another voice indeed, but not another faith, with a different tongue, but the same judgment.
Whilst there are sparse textual sources, we know that after the Apostles’ preaching and martyrdom in this country, Apostolic Christianity continued to grow despite the ferocity of Roman persecution, once again proving Tertulian’s adage that, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church. Indeed, by God’s providence, today is also the Feast of the Martyrdom of Sts Julius and Aaron who are the Protomartyrs of Wales, martyred at the Roman fortress of Carleon outside the modern city of Cardiff, during an anti-Christian persecution 3rd century, thus even predating St Alban’s martyrdom in the early 4th century.
Thus, through the suffering and witness of the Apostles in these Isles, as we can see from our copy of the beautiful ikon of the British Saints that Archimandrite David (Meyrick) painted, there is truly no inch of our holy Isles which have not been sanctified by the feet of an Orthodox saint, or the blood of a martyr. No matter what may have become of some of our hallowed shrines, the sanctity of these Isles can never be taken away, but are part of our Orthodox inheritance. Whether we feel the presence of St Botolph next to the reed beds of Iken, or St Edmund in the fields of Hoxne or St Aidan and St Cuthbert by the lapping waves of Lindisfarne our saints are here, are with us, and praying for us their spiritual descendants. In the famous words of T.S. Eliot –
For wherever a saint has dwelt, wherever a martyr has given his blood for the blood of Christ, there is holy ground, and the sanctity shall not depart from it though armies trample over it, though sightseers come with guide-books looking over it.
My dear fathers, brothers and sisters, let us give thanks for the host of saints which have shone forth in these blessed Isles. When we sing the Creed together in this Liturgy today and say the words – “I believe in One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church” let us remember that the Holy Apostles were not restricted to the distant lands of the Middle East and Mediterranean basin, but they were here, right here in our land, and they are also here, right here, with us this morning in this Liturgy. May All the Saints of Britain continue to inspire us to live the Christian life, and to become apostolic in living out the truth of the Gospel in our own lives that we might be found worthy to follow them into the Kingdom of our Lord and God and Saviour, Jesus Christ.
Amen.