Celtic Origins of the English Church

In seventh century England, missionaries from the Celtic Church of Scotland and Ireland established the Christian Faith among the Anglo-Saxons.

The following article describes the Celtic origins of the English Northumbrian Church.

Celtic Foundations Within the English Church

During the 7th century Christianity spread throughout England. At the start a hot dispute had arisen between Pope Gregory’s envoy, Augustine, and the Celtic Church of the British Isles, which was flourishing in Wales, Cornwall, Scotland and Ireland.

Kent, Rome and Iona

At the outset of English church history, the Christian Faith had come to the kingdom of Kent through the marriage of a Frankish princess to a Kentish prince during the latter half of the sixth century. Within time papal Rome’s envoy arrived in Kent in the person of Augustine, prior of St Andrew’s monastery at Rome and later Archbishop of Canterbury. According to ecclesiastical tradition, Augustine is the apostle of England, but following historical events, it becomes clear that Irish and Scottish missionaries starting from the small island of Iona in the Inner Hebrides came from Scotland to England, establishing the Celtic Church in many of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.

Celtic Apostles in England

According to Diana Leatham, author of Celtic Sunrise, the Irish monk Aidan of the monastery of Iona and his monastic companions who went with him to Northumbria are the apostles of England, and not Augustine who the Pope had sent from Rome to England. She points out that, in all England, Augustine’s authority as Archbishop of Canterbury was effective only in Kent, as neither he nor his immediate successors managed to establish the Church beyond Kent’s boundaries.

Celtic Christianity was brought to seventh century Anglo-Saxon England some forty years after Augustine’s arrival in Kent, becoming firmly established first in Northumbria and within time in the Midlands, East Anglia and western England. Celtic evangelisation seems to have been of profound spiritual character, and Diana Leatham states that at the beginning of the eighth century, the Roman Church was still struggling ‘to oust deep-rooted Celtic religious customs in Northumbria, in the Midlands, and among the West and East Saxons’.

In the south-west of England, Cornwall began embracing the Christian Faith in the fifth century due to the British Church (the Church of the Celtic Britons) whose early spiritual centres were in Wales. Where-as Welsh bishops, presbyters and monks were ethnically and linguistically the same people as the inhabitants of Cornwall, namely Britons, the Celtic missionaries of Iona of the seventh century who had come to England were making known the Gospel to people speaking a different language. Indeed the kingdom of Northumbria in northern England had developed into a confederation of Britons and Anglo-Saxons, hence both Celtic and English were spoken among its inhabitants.

The Kentish Faith

In the subsequent contest between Celtic Iona and Rome as to which church authority should be established in Anglo-Saxon England, with Rome later trying to uproot Celtic Christian customs from England’s Shires in the name of supreme papal authority, it ought not be forgotten how the Christian Faith reached Kent, as this did not come about through any missionary envoy sent from Rome. The Gospel came to sixth century Kent in the hands of a French princess, Bertha daughter of King Charibert of the Franks.

The first known church to be built by Anglo-Saxons in England is in Canterbury, Kent’s capital at that time. Dedicated to Saint Martin, it was built for Bertha, whose husband Ethelbert later succeeded his father to the Kentish throne. This church was standing before Augustine came to Kent.

King Ethelbert had already converted to his wife’s faith prior to the baptism in water which came with Augustine in 597. The origins of the English Church in Kent sprang from this spiritual conversion and not from Augustine’s baptism in water: in fact Augustine's later personal authority as Archbishop of Canterbury never passed Kent’s boundaries into the other English kingdoms, as he lacked the missionary zeal of the Celtic Church.

Baptism in water without proper biblical knowledge of the Gospel’s spiritual message was unlikely to convince the Anglo-Saxons, and so the pagan religion remained steadfast throughout England except in Kent and Cornwall for another forty years after 597, the date of Augustine’s entry in Canterbury.

The ideals of the Kentish faith in that period lay in spiritual conversion of individuals and not in large scale baptism in water administered to poorly instructed people. Both the Archbishop in Canterbury and the Pope in Rome were impotent to oppose Kent’s first Christian king in regards to the Church’s authority among the people, and indeed when Ethelbert died, his son and rightful successor Eadbald was not a Christian, but a pagan. King Eadbald, who succeeded his father in 616, later converted to the Christian Faith, yet through his own decision and in a period when many of Kent’s inhabitants were pagan. No-one among his people opposed him for reasons of religion, whether he was pagan or Christian.

Augustine Fails to Assert Papal Authority

As Kent already had a king spiritually converted to the Christian Faith at the end of the sixth century, this would reasonably explain why Augustine found hospitality there and received permission to establish a diocese at Canterbury, Kent’s capital. Yet the Pope’s envoy was unable to achieve any part of the original task for which he had set out from Rome, namely to assert papal authority over the British Church in Wales, Cornwall, Scotland and Ireland and introduce Christianity all over England.

The conclusion that Augustine accepted the hospitality of the Christian Kentish court – whose monarch had already converted – and received permission from King Ethelbert to establish a diocese within the burgh of Canterbury, is confirmed in terms of historical evidence by his failure to accomplish his original mission. Pope Gregory had ordered Augustine to organise England in two ecclesiastical provinces with archbishops at London and York. The decision to establish England’s first and primary diocese at Canterbury derived not from papal authority, but rather from that of King Ethelbert, for Augustine had failed to make any missionary headway in England and Britain outside of Kent.

A Kentish Princess in Northumbria

In the year 625 King Edwin of Northumbria married Ethelburga, sister of the Kentish king Eadbald. In the same way as her mother Bertha had brought the Gospel with her from France to Kent, so too did Princess Ethelburga take her Christian faith to Northumbria, and the Northumbrian king accepted his wife’s religion as his own. His conversion was sincere beyond doubt, for Edwin was, as Diana Leatham in her book Celtic Sunrise writes: ‘a deep thinker who was only converted to the new religion after much deliberation’.

Ethelburga’s presence in Northumbria’s capital York and the interior conversion of Northumbria’s King Edwin attracted the attention of Rome, and indeed Paulinus, who Pope Gregory I had sent to England in 601 to reinforce Augustine’s mission, took up residence at York after Ethelburga’s entry there. Consequently, the Roman custom of baptising in water in the name of the Holy Trinity quickly spread throughout Northumbria, and many went and were baptised, but few believed. Referring to King Edwin's reign, Diana Leatham notes in Celtic Sunrise that ‘the wholesale baptism of his people that followed as a matter of course affected the country hardly at all during the next eight years, as they seem to have been given little or no instruction’.

The Superficial Fruits of Paulinus

In 633, a pagan king from among the Britons by the name Cadwallon invaded Northumbria together with Penda, pagan king of the Anglo-Saxon Mercians. In the ensuing confrontation the Northumbrian soldiers were unable to hold their ground and Edwin himself fell on the battlefield, leaving the way open for Cadwallon to become Northumbria’s king. The Venerable Bede, England’s renowned eighth century ecclesiastic and historian from the abbey at Jarrow, notes in his book Ecclesiastical History of England that Northumbria’s Anglo-Saxons returned forthwith to their previous pagan religion and to their idols.

Ethelburga returned to Kent, and with her came Paulinus, papal Rome's envoy to Northumbria. In Kent the Christian Faith was by no means superficial. King Ethelbert had in fact been careful to avoid any form of mass-baptising on the part of the papal envoys – including the Archbishop of Canterbury – to people who had received little or no spiritual instruction. In this respect his authority as Christian king decisively overruled that of the Archbishop who resided in the same burgh of Canterbury, as well as that of the Pope in Rome.

In Northumbria, however, Paulinus, who had been consecrated Archbishop of York, carried out a policy of mass conversion through baptism in water. His presence there lasted from 625, the year in which Edwin married Princess Ethelburga of Kent, to 633, when Edwin fell in battle, but in all that time he completely failed to bring over the message of the Gospel to the people. It was only when the Celtic missionaries from the Scottish island of Iona founded the Church in Northumbria in the year 635 that England’s inhabitants outside Kent and Cornwall began to find a spiritual anchorage to the Church and her message.

Oswald Confronts Cadwallon for the Northumbrian Throne

Edwin’s nephew, Oswald, was son of the Northumbrian king who had reigned before Edwin had come to power in the year 616, and he was the rightful heir to the Northumbrian throne. He and his younger brother Oswy, together with a number of their faithful nobles, had taken to the Celtic monastery on the island of Iona during Edwin’s reign, and there they had converted to the Faith in Christ.

When news reached them of Edwin’s fall, they gathered a small army and confronted Cadwallon, Northumbria’s new king, for Oswald still held his claim to the throne. In 634 the two armies met and the battle was decided in favour of Oswald, who ascended the throne of Northumbria.

The Scots Establish the Church in Northumbria

After Edwin, Oswald was Northumbria’s second Christian king, and he chose the Celtic Church of the Scots, not Rome, to send missionaries to his kingdom. The Scots inhabited Scotland and Ireland, as too did their neighbours the Picts, both peoples being of Celtic origin.

In response to King Oswald’s request for missionaries, the Scots sent Aidan, an Irish monk resident in the monastery of Iona which Saint Columba of Ireland had founded in 563. On reaching northern England, Aidan founded a monastery on the island of Lindisfarne off the coast of Northumbria, and was consecrated Bishop of Lindisfarne in 635. For seventeen years Aidan upheld his ministry as missionary to the Northumbrians until the year of his death in 651.

Many were the Scots who accompanied him in order to take part in the profound spiritual conversion of King Oswald’s kingdom. Oswald, who had spent a number of years in the monastery island of Iona, spoke the Scotic language and often upheld Bishop Aidan by translating to his own people all that Aidan taught them, until the Scots themselves had comfortably mastered the English language.

Whenever Celtic missionaries from any part of the British Isles went to make known the Gospel, they would build monasteries in the midst of the population to whom they intended presenting Christianity. These timber-built ecclesiastical centres would be permanently inhabited by monks who lived in small wooden houses, known as cells, situated around the central church.

The monks would work the surrounding land, keep cattle and dedicate themselves to manufacturing whatever artefacts they required. Highly skilled in manual labour and economically self-sufficient, they would also dedicate their time to studying and writing, making copies of old books and of the Holy Scriptures, and to teaching the students who were sent to them to learn the Word of God. They would travel from village to village and talk to the people, and hold services of prayer and ecumenical communion for all who desired to attend.

Papal influence and authority within the English Church came gradually, the process being finally complete with the advent of William the Conqueror in 1066. Yet nowhere in England did Rome actually lay the foundations of the Christian Faith or participate in the origins of the English Church.

Written by D. Alexander

The original article: Celtic Foundations Within the English Church, is published on Suite 101 on the following link

dimitri-alexander.suite101.com/celtic-foundations-within-the-english-church-a279898

Read also about the Kentish origins of the English Church:
celticbritannia.blogspot.com/2011/12/origins-of-english-church.html

Dover Port Privatisation

The privatisation proposals for Dover's port are extremely unpopular.

Privatisation of the Gateway to Britain

Dover in Kent is commonly known as the gateway to Britain. Dover's geographical position in South East England, distancing only 22 miles from France, has made the town become Britain's busiest port, with an average of over 7,000 lorries and 10,000 cars transiting daily through the Eastern Docks ferry terminal.

However, the Gateway to Britain may be put up for sale following a proposal of Dover Harbour Board to attract large sums of money in order to build a new ferry terminal. The town's population has made petitions to prevent this happening, and at the 2010 general election all the local political candidates stood up and spoke out against the privatisation of Dover's port.

Dover Harbour Board

In 1606, Dover Harbour Board was created by way of a Royal Charter as a trust to administer Dover's port, its main objective being the investment of all port profits into the harbour's maintenance. At the beginning of the seventeenth century the harbour was situated in Dover's western area, in proximity to Shakespeare Cliff. The trust charter also granted Dover Harbour Board the administration of the stretch of shore going eastwards as far as the cliffs known as Eastern Heights, over which stand Dover Castle and the church of Saint Mary at the Castle.

The predominant reason that led to Dover Harbour Board's creation was the constant movement of shingle on the seabed and the subsequent silting of the harbour, which resulted in sailing ships having to use other ports. One of Dover Harbour Board's main functions consisted in constructing piers around the port that would stop shingle and sand from entering the harbour, as this would ensure safe transit for ships entering and leaving the port.

Port Expansion and no Town Revenue

During the second half of the twentieth century, with increasing port traffic passing through Dover, a new port has been gradually built up in what became known as Eastern Docks, situated below the Eastern Heights. Car-ferries operating from Dover to Calais, Boulogne and Dunkirk in France use the Eastern Docks. The older Western Docks terminal is reserved for cruise ships calling at Dover, with an additional area designated as a dock for private boats.

The harbour is surrounded from east to west by two long piers and a central break-water, with two entrances for ships and ferries: the eastern and the western harbour entrance. Both of the ports, the harbour and the promenade, as well as a number of important buildings adjacent to the promenade, are administered by Dover Harbour Board as part of the trust status.

The port facilities at both ports – Eastern and Western Docks – are fully functional, and the modern construction methods employed to build the harbour's piers and berths exclude the need to invest significant sums of money in repair works. According to Dover Harbour Board's statistics, the use of Dover's Eastern Docks port facilities in 2008 involved almost 14 million passengers, about 3 million cars, 98 thousand coaches and over 2.3 million lorries.

These impressive figures outline the consequences of port traffic passing through the town, with all the streets directly parallel to the seafront being signed over to the traffic. A continuous stream of lorries and cars entering and leaving the Port of Dover has effectively cut off the town from the seafront, whereas the absence of any form of port revenue for the town prevents profits from the port being invested in the local economy.

The trust status of Dover Harbour Board does not allow for profits to be invested in the town or the surrounding district, and no compensation for the constant port traffic has ever been made to Dover, not even for the intense pollution that inevitably stems from such enormous volumes of traffic.

Dover The Gateway to Democracy

There are two official reasons why Dover's port may be up for sale: one is to finance a new ferry terminal at Western Docks, the other to pay off a fraction of the State's national debt.

The prospect of a private owner cashing in on a constant flow of traffic passing through Dover and using port facilities that are already fully functional, has led many local people to openly question the constitutional legality of port privatisation.

The idea that the Port of Dover and subsequently other British ports may be sold to private owners to service the 900 billion pound debt of the British Treasury, could mean that the democratic expression of the people might be overruled.

Private ownership of the gateway to Britain could only come about through the elimination of the democratic will of the people both locally and nationwide. The destruction of the democratic will of the people in Dover would be a precedent to trample down democracy all over Britain, and this would be a heavy price to pay to alleviate Britain's national debt.

Democracy must prevail for the Gateway to Britain. This is not only to spare the Port of Dover from becoming privatised, but also in order to preserve Britain from tyranny, to make sure that neither Parliament nor private capitalists, nor any other group of human persons, can ever brush aside the democratic expression of the people and replace it with their own decisions.

Surely if Democracy were to fall in Dover, the Gateway to Britain, the spirit of tyranny and despotic regime would spread all over the British Isles and replace freedom and prosperity with despotic dictatorship.

Written by D. Alexander

The original article: Dover Port Sale, is published on www.suite101.com/ on the following link:

dimitri-alexander.suite101.com/dover-port-sale-a299122

Read on: What is the Dover People's Port Trust? The Dover People's Port is a Trust that campaigns for the privatisation of Dover's port.
doverkent.blogspot.com/2011/09/dover-peoples-port.html

Britain's Light Tower Church in Dover

The Church on the White Cliffs of Dover

On the White Cliffs of Dover stands the oldest lighthouse in Britain, dating back to the second century. It is located next to the church dedicated to the Mother of Jesus that is called Saint Mary at the Castle. The church and the light tower stand on the Eastern Heights overlooking Dover and the Sea, the church situated along the East-West line of the sun.

The Light Tower

The pharos, as the Roman lighthouse is called, used to illuminate the port of Dover from the East, while another Roman pharos standing on Dover’s Western Heights illuminated the port from the West. In the thirteenth century the eastern lighthouse was in a state of decay, but, as it stands next to the church of Saint Mary at the Castle, restoration works were carried out with the aim of using it as the church’s bell tower.

The workers set about their task increasing the tower’s height and installing a platform for the bells, and in 1252 three bells cast in Canterbury were placed within the tower. This conversion of the lighthouse made it technically part of a church complex with a specific religious function, as every church is supposed to have one or more bells, these normally being mounted in a tower standing next to the church or built above the church’s roof.

The transformation of the pharos into part of the ecclesiastical compound confers on this church a unique status of historic and spiritual value, and no doubt accounts for the Roman tower’s survival. Indeed the other Roman lighthouse overlooking Dover’s port from the Western Heights has long ago disappeared, where-as the Eastern light tower was maintained owing to its religious function as bell tower. It is Britain’s highest Roman building and one of the three remaining light towers constructed by the Romans.

The Church: Celtic or Saxon?

Although officially considered a Saxon church, extensive research conducted in the nineteenth century at the time of its renovation concluded that the building is of Celtic origin, founded by the Christian Britons. Kent has two distinct roots of Christian foundation, one going back to the Celtic Britons, the other to the Saxons, and so it is plausible that the church was built by either the Britons or the Saxons.

The church was built on a man-made mound, the same on which the Roman light tower had been constructed. It was renovated during the nineteenth century, maintaining its original structure and building material comprising of stone and brick. Historical accounts from the chronicles of the Saxon Kentish kings tell of the presence of a chapel at the place where the church stands. Around the year 630, King Eadbald of Kent extended the chapel’s function into a college for secular canons.

It is possible to assume that the church dedicated to Saint Mary standing next to the Roman light tower, with which it forms one complex, at some time in Saxon history replaced the previous chapel and ecclesiastical college. It is equally reasonable to suggest that the present church is by and large the same structure which constituted the chapel that was standing in king Eadbald's days, and that it was built by the Britons possibly three centuries before Eadbald's reign.

Eadbald’s father, King Ethelbert of Kent, had converted to Christianity after marrying a Christian princess named Bertha, daughter of king Charibert of the Franks, and it was Ethelbert who consequently introduced Christianity to Kent. He had already founded a chapel for his Christian wife in Canterbury – Kent’s capital at that time – before the arrival of Augustine in 597. As in the case of Dover, this chapel in Canterbury may have been a pre-existing church built centuries earlier by the Britons.

Historic Reference to the Location of the Chapel in Dover

The chapel in Dover which King Ethelbert’s son Eadbald converted into a college for the secular canons, which was in the first half of the seventh century, is historically documented as being situated in Dover’s castle area. Historical research presents two theories as to where it may have stood. The first is that the chapel was constructed on the Eastern Heights next to the Light-tower in a fortified area. The second theory is that the chapel was built in the valley not far from present Market Square near a Roman fortification.

Archaeological excavations give credit to the first theory, as a Saxon burial site has been discovered in the area of the castle on the Eastern Heights that makes feasible the presence of a Saxon settlement there around the year 630, where-as the excavations which brought to light the foundations of some Roman buildings in the valley near the town-centre, including two forts and a structure known as the Roman Painted House, have not revealed the presence of any Saxon chapel. The conclusion is that the present light tower church is the same as the original chapel documented in the seventh century, possibly modified in a later Saxon period.

The area around the castle where it stands was home not only to an ancient Saxon settlement, but also to an even older British Bronze Age settlement. Pottery discovered on the Eastern Heights castle area dating back to 1850 BC can be seen in Dover Museum. As the British Bronze Age either was, or later evolved into, a Celtic society, and the Britons are the descendants of this ancient civilization, only an attentive archaeological research will be able to define whether the present church of Saint Mary at the Castle is of Celtic or Saxon origin.

Those who carried out the construction work of the church had intended that it should stand as one with the Roman light tower. Nowadays there are no bells within the tower, yet Saint Mary’s at the Castle and its Roman tower can be seen from far and wide, situated near the medieval castle and within the castle walls. The church and its light tower together form the oldest and most unique ecclesiastical structure in Britain, conferring upon Dover the biblical titles of Zion and Caesarea by the Sea.

Written by D. Alexander

The original article: Britain's Light Tower Church in Dover, is published on
www.suite101.com/

For the original article, see:
dimitri-alexander.suite101.com/britains-light-tower-church-in-dover-a261263

Read on to discover the cosmic alignment of the church overlooking Dover and the sea and to find its pathway to Christ's Church following the sun from East to West:

celticbritannia.blogspot.com/2011/10/christs-church-revealed.html

Photo 1: The church seen from Western Heights, Dover.

Photo 2: Church and Light Tower on Eastern Heights, Dover

Photo 3: The Light Tower, Eastern Heights, Dover

Dover People's Port

Dover People's Port, or Paper Port?

What is the Dover People's Port? It is a proposal, styled on paper, sometimes referred to as a trust (Dover People's Port Trust). The Dover People's Port was put to paper in 2010 with the intention of presenting it as an alternative to the privatisation plans of Dover Harbour Board (DHB).

Location of the Dover People's Port

The Dover People's Port is not situated anywhere, as it does not exist. The only Port in Dover is the Dover Harbour Board, and consists of two ports, the Eastern Docks and the Western Docks. The seafront between these two docks is also part of the Dover Harbour Board.

Support for Dover People's Port at the Parish Poll

A parish poll held in Dover town on 23 March 2011 saw a staggering 75% of Dover's people declining to take part in the poll, which asked people to choose between the Dover People's Port and the Dover Harbour Board privatisation proposals.

The majority of people in Dover do not accept either proposal, preferring Dover Port to remain a charter port, practically a state asset, with no form of privatisation, neither that proposed by DHB nor the privatisation proposals of the Dover People's Port Trust.

Dover's People and the Port

With 75% of Dover's town residents refusing to vote in the parish poll, the obvious question is: why were the people of Dover not asked in the poll if they want the Port of Dover to remain a State asset? If this question had been asked on the ballot paper, then perhaps the vast majority of people in Dover would have turned out to vote, which would have meant a resounding: No! to the privatisation proposals both of DHB and of the Dover People's Port Trust.

As the obvious question was not asked, the vast majority did not turn up to vote, which equates to a resounding thumbs down to both privatisation proposals concerning the Port of Dover, and as a result, the Dover People's Port project has remained a paper port, its value equal to the paper it is written on.

Article written by D. Alexander

How unpopular is the privatisation proposal for the port of Dover? The vast majority of Dovorians do not want any form of port privatisation. Read on:
doverkent.blogspot.com/2012/01/dover-port-privatisation.html

An Englishman's House is his Castle

An Englishman's House

This is the last house in Dover town before reaching the castle. It has the characteristics of the proverbial saying: an Englishman's house is his castle! Walk a little further uphill from this landmark, and you will arrive at the Castle.

Dover Castle: Dover Castle the Key to England

Dover Castle: Dover Castle the Key to England: Dover Castle is the Key to England, overlooking the port and town of Dover. Dover is the oldest port in the British Isles and home to the ol...

Dover Castle the Key to England

Dover Castle is the Key to England, overlooking the port and town of Dover. Dover is the oldest port in the British Isles and home to the oldest known sea vessel in the world, the Bronze Age Boat.

Albion the Key to England

Dover is considered to be the place of Albion, the name that describes all Britain, starting in Dover. The name Albion is believed to be Celtic in origin, as too is the name Britannia.

The Dover Castle Blog will offer landscape photography of Dover, with photos taken by D. Alexander, whose ancestors are from Dover going back many, many centuries.

There will also be articles on Dover's history, a town that is one among many in the British Isles, where the Union Flag is at home and flying proudly from the Castle.