Mellitus was the first bishop of London in the Saxon period, and the third Archbishop of Canterbury. He arrived in 601 AD with a group of clergy sent to augment the mission to convert the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity. Was exiled from London by the pagan successors to his patron, King Sæberht of Essex, following the latter’s death around 616. After his death in 624, he was revered as a saint.
About Mellitus in brief
Mellitus was the first bishop of London in the Saxon period, and the third Archbishop of Canterbury. He arrived in 601 AD with a group of clergy sent to augment the mission to convert the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity. Mellitus was exiled from London by the pagan successors to his patron, King Sæberht of Essex, following the latter’s death around 616. He returned to England the following year, after Æthelberht’s successor had been converted to Christianity, but he was unable to return to London, whose inhabitants remained pagan. After his death in 624, he was revered as a saint. He was the recipient of a famous letter from Pope Gregory I known as the Epistola ad Mellitum, preserved in a later work by the medieval chronicler Bede. Gregory’s letter marked a sea change in the missionary strategy, and was later included in the Ecclesiastical History of the English People, by George Demacopoulos and Markus A. Demacopolous. The traditional view is that the letter was meant to conflict with the letter sent to Æthelberht, which was a turning point in missionary history, when forcible conversion gave way to persuasion.
The historian R. Markus Demacoplos sees the letter as a contradiction of the traditional view, and argues that it conflicts with the theologian George DemACoplos’ view of the letter, which sees forcible persuasion as a point of no return. He also believes that Mellitus’ journey through Gaul probably took in the bishoprics of Vienne, Arles, Lyons, Toulon, Marseilles, Metz, Paris, and Rouen, as evidenced by the letters that Gregory addressed to those bishops soliciting their support for Mellitus’ party. The first time Mellitus is mentioned in history is in the letters of Gregory, and nothing else of his background is known. It appears likely that he was a native of Italy, along with all the other bishops consecrated by Augustine. The papal register, a listing of letters sent out by the popes, describes him as an “abbot in Frankia” in its description of the correspondence.
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This page is based on the article Mellitus published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 04, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
