St Sabas

5^th December is the feast day of St Sabas, which is a strange term to use for this particular saint, given that feasting would have been a very rare event on his agenda!

Sabas was a “desert father” of the 5^th/6^th centuries. Born in 439 in what is now central Turkey, he determined at an early age that he wanted to live the life of a monk and, aged eighteen, he journeyed south to seek out the famous hermit Euthymius, who lived in a desert cave between Jerusalem and Jericho. Sabas hoped to be allowed to join the small group of disciples that Euthymius allowed to live close by.

However, Euthymius thought that he was too young to make such a commitment and sent him instead to a nearby monastery run by an abbot named Theoctistus. Euthymius reckoned that Sabas would receive good training there for his intended life as a desert father.

When Sabas was thirty Euthymius gave him permission to live in a cave near his own for five days a week, returning to the monastery for the other two. While in the cave, Sabas was commanded not only to pray but to weave baskets, making ten a day. He then had to take his fifty baskets back to the monastery.

Euthymius died in 473, when Sabas was 34, and the latter spent the next four years living alone in the desert. He then built a monastery of his own, along the lines of that run by Theoctistus in that other solitaries could visit it for prayer and worship when they felt so inclined.

Eventually Sabas was put in charge of all the desert monks in the region and was also sent further afield by the Patriarch of Jerusalem. He founded several other monasteries and hospitals, one of the monasteries, Mar Saba in the Kidron Valley of Palestine, still being occupied to this day by Orthodox monks.

Sabas died in 532 at the age of 94.

© John Welford

St Hubert

3^rd November is St Hubert’s Day. Hubert is the patron saint of hunting, and he gained this role by virtue of having been a hunter who was converted to Christianity when he saw a stag with a crucifix between its antlers. Hubert had been hunting on Good Friday, and he took this as a sign that he had better mend his ways. Perhaps he should therefore be the patron saint of anti-hunt protestors instead!

Hubert was probably born around 656 in south-west France, but became a courtier at the palace of the Frankish King Pepin at Metz (eastern France). After his conversion he entered the service of Bishop Lambert at Maastricht (southern Netherlands). The bishop sent him to live as a hermit in the Ardennes Forest.

Lambert was murdered around the year 705 in what was then the small village of Liège. Hubert was elected as his successor and moved the seat of his diocese (along with Lambert’s bones) from Maastricht to Liège, which then grew to become, eventually, a major city. Lambert is today recognised as the patron saint of the diocese and Hubert as patron saint of the city. Hubert died in 727, having performed much missionary work within the Ardennes region.

There is a very interesting addendum to this story, in that a tiny church dedicated to St Hubert stands, all alone, in a field in southern Hampshire (see photo above). This is the parish church of Idsworth, but there is no village of that name. The original Idsworth House was demolished in the mid 19^th century when the London to Portsmouth railway was built, and a new house was built several miles away.

The church is Saxon in origin (dating from 1053) and was originally dedicated to St Peter, but in 1864, during a restoration, extensive 14^th century murals were discovered that showed scenes that were believed to be of the life of St Hubert (although this is now doubted). The church was re-dedicated to St Hubert, and it continues to be used for worship to this day, although it has to be approached via a path through the fields!

A personal note – when I first met my wife she was living at the new Idsworth House (converted into flats and other accommodation units) and was a member of the Parochial Church Council of St Hubert’s church. She was looking after a horse at the time (which I tried riding but fell off!) and I have a vivid memory of mucking out its field, which was on the site of the old Idsworth House, as the trains roared by not far from the church that had been there for more than 900 years!

© John Welford

St Thomas Becket

On 29^th December 1170 Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, was hacked to death in his cathedral, apparently on the orders of King Henry II.

Henry came to the throne in 1154 and appointed Thomas Becket as his Chancellor, the nearest thing that medieval England had to a Prime Minister. Becket was very good at the job and he and the king became firm friends. Becket was particularly astute at ensuring that Henry’s power overrode that of the barons – who controlled vast estates in England and were thus extremely wealthy – and the Church.

There were two sources of authority in the land at the time, namely that of the king and the Church. The problem with the latter was that it derived from the Pope in Rome and was delegated via the bishops, who held the power of excommunication over anyone who offended them. As this condemned the victim to an eternity in Hell, it was taken very seriously and gave the Church the upper hand in any Church/state conflict.

Henry had the bright idea that, if he had his own man appointed as Archbishop of Canterbury, he would have both the secular and sacred sources of power at his command. He therefore appointed Thomas Becket as Archbishop of Canterbury with this end in view.

Unfortunately for Henry, Becket started to take his religious duties far more seriously than Henry had anticipated. Having been the scourge of the Church when Chancellor, Becket now became its chief defender.  He also “got religion” in a personal sense and spent many hours in prayer and meditation.

It may well be that Becket, having tasted power as the king’s right-hand man, now realised just what a weapon he had in his hands and became determined to make the most of it. In other words, power went to his head.

At any event, he started to do things that brought him into direct conflict with his former friend. These included excommunicating people who were closely allied with King Henry and insisting on the “benefit of clergy” whereby priests who were suspected of committing a crime could only be tried in ecclesiastical courts and not civil ones, thus placing them above the law of the land.

Henry banished Becket from England, only relenting after Becket had been in exile for six years. However, this did nothing to “tame” the archbishop who, on his return in early December 1170, immediately excommunicated three bishops whom Henry had appointed in his absence.

When news of this defiance reached Henry, who was in Bayeux in Normandy at the time, he expressed his anger in words that he was later to regret. These were: “What cowards have I about me – will no-one rid me of this turbulent priest?” Four noblemen heard what the king said and took him at his word, setting off for Canterbury to prove the king wrong as far as the “cowards” remark was concerned.

Henry soon became aware of their intentions and, horror-struck at what the consequence of his outburst would be, sent a messenger off with orders to stop the knights in their tracks. However, he acted too late and the messenger was not able to catch up with them.

The knights (now five, as they had recruited another en route) on reaching Canterbury firstly confronted Thomas Becket at the Bishop’s Palace, where they demanded that he flee the country again. This he refused to do. They left, but then appeared in the Cathedral shortly after Becket had arrived for vespers.

All the other clergymen bar one fled on seeing the armed men striding towards them. The first blow wounded Becket’s brave supporter, who was then powerless to defend the archbishop who was then felled and had his head split open while one of the knights stood on his neck.

King Henry was genuinely sorry for what his intemperate words had led to and he became one of the many thousands of pilgrims who made their way to the shrine that was soon erected in Becket’s memory. Becket was canonised within three years and many miracles were later claimed as being due to St Thomas Becket. Geoffrey Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales” used a fictional 14^th century pilgrimage to Canterbury as the framework for one of the greatest works in English literature.

The shrine was eventually destroyed by another King Henry, namely Henry VIII, who also had ambitions to control the power of the Church. However, the later Henry’s solution was more radical than that of the earlier – by making himself head of the English Church he combined both roles in the same person.

© John Welford

St Gelasius

One does sometimes wonder if some of the saints on the official calendar really deserve to be there. Some of them simply appear to have done their job as might have been expected, lived decent enough lives, and died peacefully in their beds. One such, it might be thought with some justification, was Pope Gelasius I who was elected in 492 and died on 19^th November 496, but was buried on 21^st November which is why the latter date is his saint’s day.

His fame, such as it is, rests on him having been a highly efficient administrator who liked to get things in order. He therefore drew up lists of saints and martyrs and a compendium of important church decrees. Indeed, his renown for tidiness in religious matters has led to him being credited with drawing up the official canon of the Bible (i.e. which books deserved to be included), but there are a number of works that have been wrongly attributed to him, and the document in question is almost certainly one of them.

One positive claim to fame on his part is that he suppressed the festival of Lupercalia, an ancient Roman fertility rite that many Christians still observed. This festival celebrated fertility and purification (the name “dies februatus” is the origin of February), so Gelasius concentrated on the purification aspect and turned it into Candlemas to celebrate the purification of the Virgin Mary after the messy and defiling business of giving birth to Jesus.

Less positive, perhaps, was Gelasius’s confirmation of the split between Catholicism and Orthodoxy that has lasted to the present day. He was convinced that the supreme power on earth was the Church, and that the supreme power in the Church was the Pope, namely himself. That status therefore set him above the Byzantine emperor and the Patriarch of Constantinople, who could submit to the Pope’s authority if they wanted to, which they didn’t.

As a straightforward, no-nonsense Roman Catholic pope, he was clearly someone that later church leaders would have been encouraged to look up to, which is probably the main reason why he was given the status of “saint”.

© John Welford

St Raymond of Penafort

7^th January is the saint’s day for Raymond of Penafort, a Spanish monk who was an expert in Church law and who had the rare distinction of living to be 100 years old – the fact that he lived mostly in the 13^th century making this all the more remarkable.

Raymond was born in 1175 in Aragon. He trained as a lawyer and studied at the universities of Barcelona and Bologna. However, at the age of 47 he changed tack completely and became a Dominican monk, his reason being that he reckoned that he was getting too full of himself and needed to learn to be more humble.

With this end in mind he asked the abbot of the monastery to give him a task that would curb his inclination towards vanity. He probably thought that he would be given menial tasks around the monastery such as cleaning or working in the kitchens, but the abbot had a better idea. Knowing Raymond’s background as a lawyer, he decided to put this talent to good use and told Raymond to gather together all the cases that had been brought before the Church courts that dealt with the commitment of sins, the idea being to produce a body of case law that could be used to ensure that the Church dealt with transgressions in a consistent and just way. Raymond’s work in this area was to prove to be highly influential for centuries to come.

© John Welford

St Menas

11^th November is the saint’s day for St Menas (sometimes spelled Mennas), who is probably not an everyday name for most people. He was one of many Christians who suffered martyrdom during the days of the Roman Empire, in his case during the sudden wave of persecutions that were ordered by Emperor Diocletian (probably for political rather than religious reasons) during the early 4^th century.

Menas was born in Egypt and may well have been a camel driver before he enlisted in the Roman army. His legion was active in Phrygia (modern Turkey) when the persecutions began. As a Christian, Menas could not bring himself to obey orders to punish fellow Christians for not worshipping the Roman gods, so he deserted from the army and hid in a cave in the mountains.

However, his conscience would not allow him to escape the fate that the Emperor had ordered, so he came down from the mountains, declared his faith during a public festival, and was promptly arrested.

Despite being tortured and beaten, Menas would not recant and was therefore beheaded.

Not surprisingly, given his supposed origins, St Menas is the patron saint of travelling merchants, particularly those who use camels.

© John Welford

St Leonard of Noblac

6^th November is the day for celebrating the life of Saint Leonard of Noblac, who lived in 6^th century France.

He was a nobleman at the court of King Clovis. When both he and the king had been converted to Christianity he renounced his privileged status and also turned down the king’s offer of a bishopric. Instead, he settled for the life of a hermit, in a hut in the forest near Limoges.

The story runs that the king and queen went hunting in the forest, despite the queen being heavily pregnant. Indeed, the action of riding a horse sent the queen into labour and it soon became clear that the birth would not go smoothly.

Fortunately, the king and queen were close to Leonard’s hut, and he offered to help. Not being trained in midwifery, Leonard did what he knew best, which was to pray. The prayers worked and the baby was delivered safely.

The king was extremely grateful and offered Leonard a reward, which was as much land as he could ride round in a day on his donkey. That might sound like a strange offer to make to someone who had already decided to forego worldly possessions, and it might also be thought to pose practical problems – what size circle do you intend to ride, based on whether you expect the donkey to be on good or poor form?

However, Leonard set off on his ride and apparently coaxed the donkey into a rare turn of speed, because by the end of the day he was the master of a large tract of land, on which he founded the Abbey of Noblac in central France (which is now , incidentally, a UNESCO World Heritage site).

Clovis also granted Leonard the promise that any prisoner he converted to Christianity would be granted his release (question – would the prisoners be told this before Leonard turned up? That sounds like a recipe for full churches and empty prisons!).

St Leonard of Noblac therefore has two main spheres of responsibility, namely pregnant women and prisoners, particularly political prisoners and prisoners of war.

© John Welford