St. Peter of Canterbury, Abbot

6 January

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Died c. 606-608; feast at Saint Augustine's in Canterbury is kept on December 30. Saint Peter was a monk at Saint Andrew's Monastery in Rome until, in 596, he was sent by Pope Saint Gregory the Great to England with the first group of missionaries under Saint Augustine of Canterbury. In 602, Peter became the first abbot of SS. Peter and Paul (afterwards Saint Augustine's) at Canterbury.

Saint Peter was probably the monk delegated by Augustine to take news to the pope of the first Anglo-Saxon conversions. He then brought back Saint Gregory's replies to Augustine's questions. Later Peter was dispatched on a mission to Gaul, but was drowned in the English Channel at Ambleteuse (Amfleet) near Boulogne. According to the Venerable Bede, the local inhabitants buried him in an "unworthy place" but, as the result of a prodigy of mysterious light appearing over his grave at night, translated his relics to a church in Boulogne with suitable honour (Benedictines, Delaney, Farmer).


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