September 11.
Saint Deiniol was a shining light of the British Church in the sixth century. Like his holy contemporaries David and Dyfrig, he was both bishop and abbot, following the order customary in the Celtic Churches. He established his cathedral at Bangor in Gwynedd (North Wales) and founded two monasteries: Bangor Fawr near Anglesey, and Bangor Iscoed on the River Dee near Chester, which was the largest and most renowned British monastery of its day. It consisted of seven separate houses, each inhabited by 300 or more monks, who lived in prayer and ascesis by the labor of their hands, making intercession for the Britons, hard-pressed by the still pagan Anglo-Saxons. (About 1,200 British monks, most of them from Bangor Iscoed, were slain by the pagan King Aethelfrith of Northumbria at the battle of Chester, c. 616, cf. Bede, Eccles. Hist. II:2.) Saint Deiniol died in peace about the year 584. (From The Synaxarion by Hieromonk Makarios of Simonos Petra, Translated from the French by Christopher Hookway.)
I received Christopher Hookway’s own copy of this first volume of the synaxarion while on pilgrimage on Iona the week of the September 11, 2001. It was first shown to me by his wife, Elisabeth, who was on that pilgrimage as well. She asked if I would like the copy in exchange for a book I had brought with me, Patrick Henry Reardon’s Christ and the Psalms. I felt the exchange of my paperback for the clothbound synaxarion with it color icons an unfair trade. But she persisted. Mr. Hookway did not live to complete the translation of the 6-volume set, though others completed it, and it is now in print.
There is today a St. Deiniol's Library (Britain's "only residential library") located in north Wales, founded by William Gladstone in 1889. St. Deiniol is marked today in our Anno Domini Calendar of the Christian Year, by the way. (Don't forget to order your copy!)
Saint Deiniol was a shining light of the British Church in the sixth century. Like his holy contemporaries David and Dyfrig, he was both bishop and abbot, following the order customary in the Celtic Churches. He established his cathedral at Bangor in Gwynedd (North Wales) and founded two monasteries: Bangor Fawr near Anglesey, and Bangor Iscoed on the River Dee near Chester, which was the largest and most renowned British monastery of its day. It consisted of seven separate houses, each inhabited by 300 or more monks, who lived in prayer and ascesis by the labor of their hands, making intercession for the Britons, hard-pressed by the still pagan Anglo-Saxons. (About 1,200 British monks, most of them from Bangor Iscoed, were slain by the pagan King Aethelfrith of Northumbria at the battle of Chester, c. 616, cf. Bede, Eccles. Hist. II:2.) Saint Deiniol died in peace about the year 584. (From The Synaxarion by Hieromonk Makarios of Simonos Petra, Translated from the French by Christopher Hookway.)
I received Christopher Hookway’s own copy of this first volume of the synaxarion while on pilgrimage on Iona the week of the September 11, 2001. It was first shown to me by his wife, Elisabeth, who was on that pilgrimage as well. She asked if I would like the copy in exchange for a book I had brought with me, Patrick Henry Reardon’s Christ and the Psalms. I felt the exchange of my paperback for the clothbound synaxarion with it color icons an unfair trade. But she persisted. Mr. Hookway did not live to complete the translation of the 6-volume set, though others completed it, and it is now in print.
I bring all this up simply because it is on my mind, this being the 8th anniversary of 9/11, and having just read the entry above in the synaxarion for today. I began to use the synaxarion upon my return from that fateful trip.
Deiniol died in 584, only 21 years after Columba established the monastery on Iona. So they were contemporaries. I did not discover the slaying of the 1,200 monks until today (it is in a footnote). On Iona I walked the beach of the White Strand, where monks were slain by Vikings. Martyrs Bay on Iona was another place where monks were put to the sword.
The church, it is said in the Orthodox service, is adorned with the blood of martyrs “as in purple and fine linen.” The martyrs are “the first fruits of creation,” that is, those who have most fully realized union with Christ, in Whom is the destiny of us all who put their trust in Him, who commend their whole to Him. Everything else, as St. Paul, wrote, is rubbish, compared with knowing Christ the Lord. The monks lived and died for the Resurrection, and had it in mind and heart, like a shining light.There is today a St. Deiniol's Library (Britain's "only residential library") located in north Wales, founded by William Gladstone in 1889. St. Deiniol is marked today in our Anno Domini Calendar of the Christian Year, by the way. (Don't forget to order your copy!)
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