H

Honorius was a Roman by birth and a monk.

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September 30 · Archbishop

St. Honorius of…

St. Honorius of Canterbury

Honorius was a Roman by birth and a monk.

Traditional feast

September 30
1914 / pre-1969 calendar, per Baring-Gould (1897)

Current feast

September 30
Secondary source · Wikipedia

Represents

Archbishop

Their story

Adapted in modern English from Alban Butler's Lives of the Saints · little is known

Honorius was a Roman by birth and a monk. St. Gregory the Great chose him as one of the missionaries sent to convert the English. When St. Justus died, Honorius was chosen archbishop of Canterbury. St. Paulinus of York consecrated him at Lincoln, and Pope Honorius I sent him the pall.

He saw the faith spread across the island and worked hard for it. He died on 30 September and was succeeded by Deusdedit. Butler and Baring-Gould agree on 653.

Early life

The book says little or nothing about early life. This is how the account begins.

Thin entry · the 1897 book gives only 0 words. We have not filled the gap with invented detail.

What they represent

How they teach us to live

Drawn from themes in the original account

Keep their day. Remember them on September 30 with a short prayer, and ask for their help.

Read more

The full original · 0 words

Read Baring-Gould’s full account

Baring-Gould’s sources: Roman and Benedictine Martyrologies. Whitford's Anglican Martyrology, 1526; Wilson’s Martyrology of 1640. Authorities: — Bede, Hist. Eccl.] Honorius was a disciple of S. Gregory the Great, and was sent by him to Britain along with S. Augustine. He succeeded S. Justus in the see of Canterbury. He is said by some to have been ordained by S. Paulinus of York, at Lincoln, and Honorius I. the Pope, sent him the pall in a.d. 634. When King Edwin fell in the battle of Hatfield (nth October, 633), and Northumbria was ravaged by the ferocious Cadwallon, who sought, as Bede says, to extirpate from the soil of Britain the English race, S. Paulinus fled by sea, taking with him the gentle Ethelburga, the widow of King Edwin, with the daughter and the two youngest sons whom she had borne to Edwin. He placed them in safety with her brother, the King of Kent, and then was invested with the bishopric of Rochester by the King and Archbishop Honorius.

Feast days

Feast: September 30

Nine days · Free

Pray the novena
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One short email a day for nine days. The day's prayer, a line from St. Honorius of…'s story, and a nudge to keep going.

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J

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← All 1726 saints in the library
Sources & notes

Feast-day sources

Story sources

Sources

Credits

From Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, new edition in 16 vols. (London: John C. Nimmo, 1897–98); text from the Internet Archive scan (OCR, lightly cleaned; errors possible). Public domain.

From Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, new edition in 16 vols. (London: John C. Nimmo, 1897–98); text from the Internet Archive scan (OCR, lightly cleaned; errors possible). Public domain in the United States. Reproduced unedited, except for short bracketed notes in grey that we added to explain names and terms (“S.” is the old abbreviation for Saint). Some history and judgments reflect 19th-century scholarship.