St. Augustine of Canterbury (from the website: catholicexchange.com)
The
sixth-century bishop St. Augustine of Canterbury (d. 605) is famous for
his missionary work in England (not to be confused with St. Augustine
of Hippo, the great Church thinker of the fourth century). Augustine
was the prior or abbot of a monastery in Rome. In 596 the Pope, St.
Gregory the Great, chose him to lead a group of thirty monks on a
missionary journey to England (there were some scattered Christian
communities there, but the land as a whole was still predominantly
Anglo-Saxon and pagan).
Augustine’s group set out, but on reaching
France, heard terrifying stories of the treacherous waters of the
English Channel and the ferocious temperament of the Anglo-Saxons.
Augustine hurried back to confer with the pope, but Gregory reassured
him that his fears were groundless, and sent him back on his way.
The
missionaries arrived in England in 597. King Ethelbert, a pagan
married to a Christian, received them kindly, and their work flourished.
On Pentecost Sunday the king was baptised, along with many of his
subjects. Augustine journeyed briefly to France, where he was
consecrated a bishop, and then returned to England, establishing his
see, or diocese, in Canterbury. The see at Canterbury continued to
prosper, and additional dioceses were later established at London and
Rochester.
Not all of Augustine’s efforts were successful; his
attempts to reconcile the Anglo-Saxon converts and the original
Christian inhabitants of England failed, and for a time the
missionaries’ work progressed slowly. By the time of St. Augustine’s
death in 605, however, a solid foundation for England’s later widespread
conversion to Christianity had been established.
For a more complete biography see also: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02081a.htm