ST. BEDE THE VENERABLE (MAY 27TH)

St. Bede the Venerable, Icon by Aidan Hart

Edited by Bp. Joseph (Ancient Church of the West)

St. Bede (AD 672 - 735), also known as The Venerable Bede and Bede the Venerable. He was an English monk at the monastery of St. Peter and its companion monastery of St. Paul in the Kingdom of Northumbria of the Angles.

Born on lands belonging to the twin monastery of Monkwearmouth–Jarrow in present-day Tyne and Wear, Bede was sent to Monkwearmouth at the age of seven and later joined Abbot Ceolfrith at Jarrow. Both of them survived a plague that struck in AD 686 and killed a majority of the population there. While Bede spent most of his life in the monastery, he travelled to several abbeys and monasteries across the British Isles, even visiting the archbishop of York and King Ceolwulf of Northumbria.

A Medieval Icon of St. Bede Writing the "Ecclesiastical History"

The Frontispiece from a 17th Century Edition of the "Ecclesiastical History"

A Printed Page in Latin from an Early Edition

The Resting Place of the Relics of St. Bede

A Contemporary Icon of St. Bede, Drawing Upon the Traditional Iconography of St. Gregory the Diologist

He was an author, teacher (Alcuin was a student of one of his pupils), and scholar, and his most famous work, "Ecclesiastical History of the English People," gained him the title "The Father of English History." His exegetical and philosophical writings were extensive and included a number of Biblical commentaries and other theological works of great erudition. 

Another important area of study for St. Bede was the academic discipline of "computus," otherwise known to his contemporaries as the science of calculating calendar dates. One of the more important dates Bede tried to compute was Easter, an effort that was mired in controversy. He also helped popularize the practice of dating forward from the birth of Christ ("Anno Domini" – "In the Year of Our Lord"), a practice which eventually became commonplace in medieval Europe. 

St. Bede was one of the greatest teachers and writers of the Early Middle Ages and is considered by many historians to be the most important scholar of antiquity for the period between the death of Pope Gregory I in AD 604 and the coronation of Charlemagne in AD 800.

In AD 1899, Pope Leo XIII declared him a Doctor of the Church and the Orthodox greatly respect him as the primary chronicler of Orthodoxy in England. St. Bede was moreover a skilled linguist and translator, and his work made the Latin and Greek writings of the early Church Fathers much more accessible to his fellow Anglo-Saxons, which contributed significantly to the Anglo-Orthodoxy Patrimony of England. 

COLLECT

ALMIGHTY GOD, Who didst bring light to Thy Church through the learning of the Venerable Saint Bede, mercifully grant that we Thy servants may ever be illumined by his wisdom and helped by his intercessions, that we also might be faithful scholars, priests and historians in the service of Thy Holy Church. 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. 

(Text: Edited from Wikipedia and the Roman Missal)