Posted by Today we celebrate the feast of St. Erconwald, as well as commemorating the Twenty Fifth Sunday after Pentecost. St. Erconwald was one of the great saints of seventh century England. He founded two monasteries in south east England, one at Chertsey and the other at Barking (which was a double monastery under the rule of his sister Ethelburga). His reputation for piety and holiness led St. Theodore of Tarsus, the Archbishop of Canterbury, to consecrate him in 675 to be bishop of the vacant see of London. His episcopate was noted for his ability to act as a reconciler in situations of conflict. It is said that he helped bring about a resolution in the great dispute between St. Theodore and St. Wilfrid of York over the division of St. Wilfrid’s diocese. Though both St. Theodore and St. Wilfrid were great church leaders with a zeal for the salvation of souls they found it difficult to work together. It required someone of a more peaceable nature such as St. Erconwald to act as a reconciler in this dispute. It is also said that St. Erconwald played a role in the development of the great law code of King Ine of Wessex. After his death in 693 St. Erconwald was revered as a saint and he became the patron saint of the city of London. He was buried in St. Paul’s cathedral and his body was moved to a more honourable sepulchre on this day in 1140. Hence, we celebrate his feast on the day of the translation of his relics, rather than on the day of his death.
In assessing the impact of the life and work of St. Erconwald it is important to remember that during his lifetime in the seventh century political unity had not yet been attained in England. The country was divided into separate tribal kingdoms of Angles, Saxons and Jutes. These peoples had invaded and settled in the country after the withdrawal of the Roman army. The rulers were essentially tribal warlords and aggressively pagan. They had obliterated the limited progress Christianity had made in this country during the period of Roman rule. Christianity still survived among the Britons or Celts in other areas of these islands, but in England it had been largely displaced by the pagan Anglo- Saxons. They were not only aggressively pagan in the work of conquest. They were also aggressive and warlike towards each other, forming separate tribal kingdoms who fought each other. However, starting at the end of the sixth century with the mission of St. Augustine to the kingdom of Kent and continuing during the seventh century to the other tribal kingdoms, the nation was gradually Christianised. The kingdom of Sussex was the last to renounce paganism through the work of St. Wilfrid. St. Erconwald’s see in London was based in the kingdom of Essex. This had initially embraced Christianity, relapsed again into paganism before being Christianised again by the time of St. Erconwald.
The reason for stating all this is to make it clear that this country achieved religious unity before it obtained political unity. When St. Bede in the next century (Bede was writing in the 730s) wrote the Ecclesiastical History of the English people he was able to speak of an English people because they shared a common faith, even though there was as yet no political unity. It would only be later in the ninth and tenth centuries that the nation would achieve political unity when the kingdom of Wessex alone survived from the Viking invasions and gradually united the rest of the country under one kingdom. But the country had already been Christian for many centuries before that. It had achieved cultural and religious unity before it had political unity.
All this was possible through the work of the Church. In contrast to the endemic tribalism and violence of the society it was evangelising it proclaimed a message of peace and reconciliation. The strength of the Christian Church lay in the monasteries, and the early bishops such as St. Erconwald were essentially missionary monks. The monks were literate, they kept accounts, they planned ahead and they preserved the elements of civilisation in an age when it had essentially collapsed. The tribal warlords who ruled the different English kingdoms saw that the missionaries had a higher form of life than their own. They were consequently willing to become Christians themselves (albeit often in a somewhat rudimentary and unsatisfactory form). Christianity is today often seen as reactionary and backward looking and an impediment to human progress. But in the early ages of the history of our nation it was the main instrument of progress and reform. That is why the rulers of the tribal kingdoms wanted to become Christians themselves. It was not only an age of barbarism, but also an age of saints. It was the saints like St. Erconwald who shone like a beacon the light of faith in an age of tribalism and violence. They gave the nation a cultural and religious unity at a time when political unity was impossible.
There is much that we can learn from this period today. Though our society likes to see itself as civilised it is in many ways reverting to the tribalism and violence that the saints of the early ages of our nation had sought to overcome. But the example of saints like St. Erconwald gives us reason for hope when we are tempted to despair by the situation in which we now found ourselves. We must strive to follow their example today. As G. K. Chesterton put it. “It is not that the Church will drag us back to the Dark Ages. The Church is the only thing that got us out of them”. Let us pray that we may be called to follow the example of St. Erconwald and become lights to the world in our own time and place.
O Almighty and everlasting God, who dost this day make us glad on the feast of thy blessed bishop and confessor Erconwald, we humbly beseech thy mercy that as we do honour his memory by a solemn office, his fatherly prayers may help us to the attaining of eternal life, through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who livest and reignest with thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.