Commontide
Proper 17
Liturgical Color: White/Gold
The 12th Sunday after Trinity
O Lord, we pray that your grace may always precede and follow after us, that we may continually be given to good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Most liturgical texts are from the Book of Common Prayer (2019) of the Anglican Church in North America.
The New Coverdale Psalter, © 2019 by the Anglican Church in North America. Used by permission.
Bishop of Dorchester and Apostle of Wessex
Anglican Commemoration
Birinus was an Italian bishop who sailed to England in 634 meaning to carry the gospel deeper inland than anyone had gone, to the wild pagans no missionary had reached. He got as far as Wessex, found that the West Saxons had never heard of Christ at all, and decided they needed him more than the distant interior did. He stayed and converted them. He baptized their king with Oswald of Northumbria standing as godfather, set his see at Dorchester-on-Thames, and laid, parish by quiet parish, the Christian foundation of what became the greatest of the English kingdoms.
Almost nothing is known of Birinus's early life. According to Bede, he was consecrated bishop in Genoa by Asterius, Archbishop of Milan, and came to Britain around 634 with the intention of penetrating to the most inland and remote regions where no teacher had yet gone. Pope Honorius I had commissioned him for this mission.
On reaching the territory of the Gewisse (West Saxons), Birinus found a people still entirely pagan and decided they needed him more than the distant interior. He settled among them and began preaching. His great breakthrough came when King Cynegils accepted baptism, with Oswald, the powerful Christian king of Northumbria, acting as sponsor — a diplomatic and spiritual event of considerable significance, cementing an alliance between the two kingdoms.
Cynegils gave Birinus the town of Dorchester-on-Thames as his episcopal seat. From there Birinus worked for approximately fifteen years, converting the surrounding population, building churches, and establishing the infrastructure of Christian worship in a region that had known nothing of the faith. He also baptized Cynegils's successor Cenwalh, though Cenwalh later lapsed and only returned to Christianity after a period of exile.
Birinus died around 649 or 650. His relics were later translated to Winchester, where they were venerated throughout the Middle Ages.
Birinus's hagiographic tradition is largely a product of later Winchester promotion. When his relics were translated to Winchester (traditionally by Bishop Haeddi c. 690), the cult developed significantly. Later medieval vitae, composed after the translation, attribute various healing miracles to his intercession at the Winchester shrine.
According to Winchester tradition, when Birinus's remains were moved from Dorchester, they were found incorrupt — a standard hagiographic topos. A 10th-century vita attributed to a Winchester author expands the miracle narratives considerably.