Died c. 647. Saint Ethelburga was the daughter of
King Saint Ethelbert of Kent (f.d. February 24),
who had been converted to Christianity by
his wife Bertha (Tata) and
Saint Augustine of Canterbury (f.d. May 27).
Ethelburga married the pagan King Edwin of Northumbria. She and her
chaplain
Saint Paulinus (f.d. October 10)
helped persuade
Edwin to become a Christian in 627 and a saint (f.d. October 12).
The behaviour
of his wife, as much as the preaching of Paulinus, must have had a great
influence in the conversion of Edwin and his court. Pope Boniface wrote
to her to encourage her, addressing the letter
To his daughter, the
most illustrious lady, Queen Ethelburga, Bishop Boniface, servant of the
servants of God ...
He sent her the blessing of St Peter, and a silver
mirror with an ivory comb adorned with gold, asking her to accept the
present
in the same kindly spirit as that in which it is sent.
Edwin encouraged the advancement of Christianity in his kingdom, but on
his death, paganism returned, and Ethelburga and Paulinus were forced to
return to her native Kent. There she founded a double monastery at
Lyminge where her brother Eadbald gave her the site of an old Roman
villa at Lyminge, on Stone Street, near the Roman fort of Lymne.
St. Ethelburga continued at Lyminge to the end of her life, and there
remains a recess in the South wall of the parish church, which was
probably her tomb, and her well on the village green, in a good state of
preservation. When Lanfranc founded the Collegiate Church at Canterbury
for the parish clergy of the city, he translated the relics of St.
Ethelburga, and they were enshrined there, just outside the Northgate,
until the time of the Dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII
(
Attwater2,
Benedictines,
Delaney).
Saint Ethelburga is portrayed in art as a crowned abbess with the Abbey
of Lyminge, where she is venerated
(
Roeder).
Troparion of St Ethelburga
Tone 4
O holy Ethelburga, thou didst blossom as a lily in Kent
and then adorn Northumbria as bride of the martyr king Edwin.
Thou didst devote thy widowhood to thy convent in Kent.
Pray that we, following the example
of thy long and fruitful life
may spend all our year's in God's service
and find mercy at the last.