Birinus Saint
Birinus, Saint
(died 650 ) Confessor, apostle of Wessex, died Dorchester, England . A Benedictine monk at Rome, he was consecrated at Genoa by Archbishop Asterius of Milan and sent by Pope Honorius to spread the gospel in England . He arrived in Wessex, 634 , and converted King Cynegils. He established his see at Dorcic, now Dorchester. Relics at Winchester, where numerous miracles have taken place. Feast , 3 December .
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Birinus, Saint
Confessor, first Bishop of Dorchester (in what is now the County of Oxford, not Dorchester, the capital of Dorsetshire), and Apostle of Wessex; date of birth unknown; died 3 December, 650, at his see and was buried in his own church there. Later (680) his remains were deposited by Bishop Headda in the cathedral at Winchester, where finally (4 September, 972) Bishop Ethelwold enshrined them in silver and gold. According to Bede, Birinus came to Britain on the advice of Pope Honorius I (625-638), having been consecrated bishop by Asterius at Genoa. He promised “to sow the seed of the holy faith in the inner parts beyond the English”, but on his arrival (634) found the West Saxons so pagan that he decided to devote his ministry to them. God blessed his zeal by the conversion of their king, Cynegils (635), of his son Cwichelm (636), and of Cwichelm’s son Cuthred (639). Cynegils’ daughter (Cyneburga?) was also baptized, and Oswald, the holy King of Northumbria, who had come to Cynegils in suit of her hand, was sponsor to her father and wedded her. Doubtless his presence helped Birinus much in his first spiritual conquests. Immediately after this, Oswald and Cynegils gave him Dorcic, or Dorchester, the capital of Wessex, for his see, where “he built and consecrated many churches and by his labours called many to the Lord”.
Birinus had great devotion for the Body of Our Lord, as is shown in the account of his walking on the sea to procure the corporal given him by Pope Honorius, wherein he ever carried the Blessed Eucharist. Field strangely disposes of this miracle and others as allegorical or fabricated, after allowing, however, that their chroniclers had some common source of information lost to us now. Many miracles took place at the discovery of Birinus’s relics, and Huntingdon among others speaks of “the great miracles of Birin”. At present, there is a growing devotion to him in the Established Church. due probably to the connection of the royal family with Cedric, a side branch of whose stock was Cynegils. Field enumerates many modern Protestant memorials. The Catholics of Dorchester honoured their patron, in, 1849, with a beautiful chapel.
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CHARLES L. KIMBALL Transcribed by Christine J. Murray
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume IICopyright © 1907 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightImprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Birinus Saint
the first bishop of the West Saxons, is said by Bede (Hist. Ecclesiastes 3, 7) to have undertaken, by the advice of pope Honorius, the conversion of the interior of England, and for this work was consecrated by Asterius, bishop of Genoa. He landed in Wessex in 634, and, finding the people to be heathen, decided to stay and preach among them. The king, Cynegils, was one of his first converts, and under his protection and that of Oswald of Northumbria he fixed his see at Dorchester, Oxfordshire, on the border of Wessex and Mercia. The latter kingdom, then under Penda, afforded a field for his missionary labors. He died in or about 650, and was buried at Dorchester. His remains were translated by bishop Haedde to Winchester about 686, and he is commemorated Dec. 3. The Winchester historians add that he was a Benedictine monk of the monastery of St. Andrew at Rome, that he dedicated the Church of the Holy Trinity, Winchester, in the twelfth year of his pontificate, and died in the fourteenth. The canons of Dorchester claimed his relics, asserting that Birinus had never been translated. The parish of Kilbirnie, Scotland, is named from St. Birinus, but no fair marks his day. There is a Kilbirnie Loch at the west end of the parish of Beith; and the parish Dumbarne. probably takes its name from this saint. See Forbes, Kal. Scott. Saints, p. 279 sq.