Augustine was the prior of the Monastery of Saint Andrew in Rome when Pope Gregory I sent him as a missionary to Great Britain, leading about forty monks. The hesitant—perhaps not very courageous—Augustine interrupted his journey and returned to Rome; Gregory appointed him abbot and encouraged him to carry out his mission. During the resumed journey in Gaul, he was consecrated bishop.
On the island of Thanet, the King of Kent, Ethelbert, received the missionaries and escorted them to his residence in Canterbury, where the monks settled near Saint Martin’s Chapel, rebuilt by Queen Bertha, who was a Christian. The missionaries’ efforts were successful: Augustine baptized the king. A second group of missionaries sent by the pope brought him the pallium, proper to archbishops; this made Augustine the first Archbishop of England.
However, there were difficulties, especially from the Celtic Church, with which it was not possible to harmonize well; for example, the Celtic Christians resisted accepting the new Roman liturgical practices introduced in Great Britain by the arriving monks.
Augustine did not fully execute the pope’s plan regarding the ecclesiastical governance of what we now call England: the careful Gregory had divided the land into well-defined dioceses, with a second metropolitan in York. Augustine consecrated only two newly constituted bishops: the bishops of London and Rochester, Mellitus, and Justus.
Augustine died on May 26 of the same year as Saint Gregory, either 604 or 605. He was buried in the Church of Saints Peter and Paul in Canterbury (now Saint Augustine’s), built by the king near the missionaries’ monastery. Previously, the feast was celebrated on May 28.
