Chapter I: What did St Augustine really do?

It is often claimed that history is written by the victors. This is not true at least, it has not been true for the last 150 years or so. Histories are usually written by historians, and this is, most decidedly, a mixed blessing. The problem is that, more often than not, historians have an axe to grind: a particular Weltanschauung or social theory to propound. This, naturally, tends to distort the picture they present to the world. History, far from being a dispassionate appraisal of past events, is frequently heavily tinged with partisanship, polemic, and propaganda. 

This, lamentably, is especially true in the sphere of Church history. Nor should it be surprising. The competing claims of various denominations to be the sole repositories of the Christian Truth inevitably foster bitter partisanship. Rarely has partisanship more gravely distorted the historical truth than in history of  the Church of England. Students of Anglican history today are sandbagged not only by Roman, Orthodox, and Protestant propagandists and apologists, but also by fellow Anglicans of different liturgical and theological persuasions.

As a consequence, at this point in the 20th Century, there seems to be a general acceptance of the notion that the English Church, as we know it, came into being as the result of St. Augustine’s mission to Kent in the year A.D. 597. Indeed, The Most Rev. Robert Runcie, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, made obeisance to the theory during his visit to the Vatican not so long ago. 

Actually, Augustine did not establish the English Church. Far from it, in fact. When he arrived in Kent—an obscure Saxon kingdom in South England—it was virtually the only part of the British Isles that remained almost entirely heathen. I say almost entirely because there was a Christian presence in Kent: priests and monks from Gaul (now France) who ministered to Queen Bertha, a Christian princess from Gaul, who was consort of the Kentish king. The West and North of the British Isles were, to all intents and purposes, wholly Christian. And there was an extensive network of Christian missions throughout the rest of Britain. 

Far from converting Britain to Christianity, Augustine found that the task had largely been accomplished by a Church one rarely hears about these days. It was the indigenous British Church—commonly called the Celtic Church; the Church that we, today, call the Church of England. 

Claims that Augustine was Primate of Britain are, thus, quite empty. Britain already had its own Primate—the Archbishop of Carleon, the successor to St. David, the patron saint of Wales, who had died some 20 years before Augustine’s arrival. The British Isles also boasted 120 bishops and thousands of priests, not to mention many thousands of monks and nuns.

It is difficult to know what Augustine would have made of the claims made on his behalf by modern historians. Certainly, he tried to assert Pope Gregory the Great’s authority, but his efforts were not in any great degree successful. 

This might well be because the Romans had not yet declared the pope “Christ’s Vicar on Earth.” Indeed, it is not until more than 100 years later we encounter a pope who felt secure enough assert (albeit somewhat tentatively) that he was “St. Peter’s Vicar upon Earth.” That pope was Gregory II and the assertion is to be found in the oath that St. Boniface took upon being consecrated bishop in A.D. 722. Demands for fealty based on this claim were rejected by the English, in word and deed, from that time onward until the Reformation. 

The best argument that a pope could put forward for his claim to authority over the British Church was that he had traditionally occupied a position of primus inter pares (first among equals) among Christian Bishops. Such a claim—which would certainly be challenged in the world of Eastern Orthodoxy—would give him no more authority than a right to the courtesy of presiding at ecumenical gatherings.

The manner in which Pope Gregory the Great sent Augustine to England illustrates this: Gregory, for example, didn’t assert the right to consecrate Augustine a British bishop. Rather he asked one the bishops of Gaul—whose see was closest to Britain—to consecrate Augustine as a personal favor. 

The Gallic bishop appears to have been reluctant to do so. He must surely have had contacts with the British Church. This means he must have been well aware that he had no authority to perform such a consecration. In any event, he kept Augustine kicking his heels for a very long time before finally—and apparently with considerable reluctance—acceding to Gregory’s importuning. 

Moreover, it wasn’t until Augustine managed to establish himself at the Kentish Court that Gregory actually sent him the pallium, designating him “Rome’s man” and, by implication,

Kent (not England; for Kent was, at that time, a sovereign state) “Rome’s territory.” Gregory, however, must have been fully aware that his claims in this regard were decidedly shaky. 

The English Church’s relationship to Rome is—and has always been—the same of that of the Eastern Orthodox Churches. Indeed, Rome has, de facto, acknowledged this for best part of 800 years.