FEAST OF ST. BOLTOPH (JUNE 17th)

Edited Bp Joseph Boyd (Ancient Church of the West) 

St. Botolph is one of the earliest and most famous of East Anglian missionaries, becoming the patron saint of all travelers in the English Patrimony. St. Botolph was of noble Saxon lineage, living in the 7th century, and was sent to be educated in a Benedictine Abbey in Frankish lands. After a long sojourn amongst the Germanic Tribes, St. Botolph eventually came back to East Anglia to evangelize his own people. The local king, Ana, gave him land on which to build a monastery, where he established a center of monasticism and missionary work for East Anglians in AD 654. This place was called Icanhoh, the present “Boston” (meaning “Botolph’s Town”) in Lincolnshire, East Midlands. Icanhoh was a marshland, and St. Botolph was said to have expelled the demons that lived in the swamps, which had preyed upon innocent travelers as they passed through the hinterlands. 

Stained Glass of St. Boltoph, from St. Boltoph’s Anglican Church, Cambridge, England

St. Botolph died after a long life of Christian missions and teaching in AD 680 of natural causes. The monastery continued in his name to minister for two more centuries, but was destroyed by the Danes in AD 870. The great Christian king, Edgar (AD 963-967), ordered the relics of St. Boltoph to be taken from the ruins, and divided in three reliquaries: the skull to be taken to Ely, the chest to be taken to Thorney Abbey, and all the remainder to be taken to Westminster Abbey, to be interred for veneration of the faithful. As his bones were conveyed from place to place, and since he had driven out the demons who had harmed travelers in the marshlands, his name became associated with wayfarers and travelers of all kinds. 

COLLECT 

ALMIGHTY GOD, Who didst bestow Thy holiness upon Thy humble servant, St. Boltoph, to serve as an example of home missions and faithfulness to the Gospel; grant that we may be as he was, witnessing to Thy glory in the highways and byways, faithfully sharing Thy Holy Word to all those in our homeland; and, grant that we may be kept from all harm in our journeys through the intercession of St. Boltoph before Thy Throne; through Jesus Christ our Lord, Who livest and reignest with Thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.