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The Patron Saint of St Aidan's Anglican Church
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Aidan of Lindisfarne, the patron saint of St Aidan's Anglican church in Oakville, Ontario, Canada, was a monk, bishop and missionary, whose death is mentioned in the Anglo Saxon Chronicles in AD 651. We celebrate the life of St Aidan on August 31st every year. Irish by birth, Aidan became a monk in the Island community of Iona off the coast of Scotland. The British Isles were in turmoil in the seventh century. The Romans had brought Christianity with them, but, as the various Anglo Saxon tribes invaded, they introduced their own religions. In 634 AD, King Oswald regained the throne of Northumbria and resolved to bring Christianity to the area. He had been in exile on Iona and stayed at the monastery, so he requested missionaries to come to Northumbria. The first bishop to come was unsuccessful and was replaced by Aidan, who became a bishop, settled on the Northumbrian island of Lindisfarne and began to learn the local Anglo Saxon English dialect. |
Aidan was very successful in his mission, by the unusual technique - at the time - of travelling on foot, talking to people as he went. There is a story that he was given a horse by the king and promptly gave it to the nearest beggar. In spite of this, he remained on friendly terms with King Oswald and his successor, King Oswine. The monastery on Lindisfarne took in twelve young local men to train to take over leadership in the area. Aidan died in AD 651, shortly after King Oswine was murdered. Christianity continued to flourish in the area, as did the Community of Lindisfarne The Venerable Bede, writing less than one hundred years later, mentions Aidan's influence and death in in the Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum [ Ecclesiastical History of the English People]. "A.D. 651. This year King Oswin was slain, on the twentieth day of August; and within twelve nights afterwards died Bishop Aidan, on the thirty-first of August." More about the life of St. Aidan Right: St. Aidan, a painting in the Oakville church by John McLean |
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