 | |
|
|
|
Who was St. Wilfrid?
|
|
Born in Northumberland in 634,
St. Wilfrid was educated at Lindesfarne and then spent some time in Lyons
and Rome. Returning to England, he was elected abbot of Ripon in 658 and
introduced the Roman rules and practices in opposition to the celtic ways
of northern England. In 664, he was the architect of the definitive
victory of the Roman party at the Conference of Whitby. He was appointed
Bishop of York and after some difficulty finally took possession of his
See in 669. He laboured zealously and founded many monasteries of the
Benedictine Order, but he was obliged to appeal to Rome in order to
prevent the subdivision of his diocese by St. Theodore, Archbishop of
Canterbury.
While waiting for the case to be decided, he was forced to go into exile,
and worked hard and long to evangelise the heathen south Saxons until his
recall in 686. In 691, he had to retire again to the midlands until Rome
once again vindicated him. In 703, h resigned his post and retired to his
monastery at Ripon where he spent his remaining time in prayer and
penitential practices, until his death in 709.
St. Wilfrid was an outstanding personage of his day, extremely capable and
possessed of unbounded courage, remaining firm in his convictions despite
running afoul of civil and ecclesiastical authorities. He helped bring the
discipline of the English Church into line with that of Rome. He was also
a dedicated pastor and a zealous and skilled missionary; his brief time
spent in Friesland in 678-679 was the starting point for the great English
mission to the Germanic peoples of continental Europe.
|
|
|
|
|
|
