The Parish Magazine December 2024

feature — 4
At the beginning of the 7th Century this part of
the country was in the Kingdom of Wessex and its
inhabitants lived as pagans, that was until about 635
when a Christian priest called Birinus crossed the
Channel with the intention of travelling on to the
Midlands where no Christian preachers had ever set
foot. But his journey was substantially delayed in
South East England, where he found among the Saxon
inhabitants that paganism was rife. He decided to delay
his journey and make an unplanned stop there.
Little is known of Birinus's early life other than he was a
7th century Italian monk who was consecrated bishop in
Milan by Archbishop Asterius.
It seems that Birinus was a man who felt compelled to
proclaim the good news of God, but for him he felt this in
a particular way by making his mark on history.
We are told that in 634, this led Pope Honorius to
choose Birinus to 'sow the seeds of their Holy Faith in the
distant lands beyond the Kingdom of the English, where no
other had been before him'.
Birinus set about preaching to whomever he
encountered and he gradually became known, as did his
message of Christ the Saviour.
A major breakthough was made when the King of
Wessex, Cynegils, asked Birinus for instruction in the
Christian faith. His daughter was about to marry Oswald,
the Christian king of Northumbria, and for political
reasons Cynegils now also wanted to convert.
So Birinus taught and baptised Cynegils and his
family, and in return they gave him the Romano-British
town of Dorchester as his see, and Birinus became the
first Bishop of Dorchester.
From his new ‘headquarters’, Birinus spent his last 15
years starting several churches around Wessex..
Towards the end of his life Birinus dedicated a church
at Winchester, which later became the ecclesiastical
centre of the kingdom. There is no record of Wessex
bishops at Dorchester after 660.
One of the many churches inspired by Birinus is
thought to be St Andrew's Sonning. Later he made St
Andrew's Sonning one of the twin Cathedrals for the
Bishop of his diocese, the other being Ramsbury, near
Hungerford.
It retained this status for about 150 years until, after
several further diocesan reorganisations, Sonning became
part of Salisbury Diocese, when it was founded in 1220.
After another 616 years in 1836 the parish of St
Andrew's Sonning, along with the rest of Berkshire, was
transferred to the Oxford Diocese where it has remained
ever since.
One of St Andrew's Sonning legacies of being a
cathedral was the 12th Century palace for visiting
bishops, believed to be in the area where The Bull Hotel
now stands.
The Parish Magazine — December 2024 21
Birinus, a Sonning Lord of the Manor
CHURCH BUILDER
CATHEDRAL
Stained glass window of Birinus at Dorchester Abbey
StephenPaternoster, wikimedia commons
A bronze plaque inside St Andrew's lists 11 bishops of
Sonning who remained 'Lords of the Manor' until 1574
when it was surrendered to Queen Elizabeth I.
SUPREME HEAD
When St Andrew's Church was dedicated it included
the glazing of the windows. Between 1260 and 1620
several extensions were built and during the latter part of
that period, known as the Reformation, Henry VIII took
the church, previously under the jurisdiction of the popes,
away from Rome when he created the Church of England,
with him as its Supreme Head.
It was then that the worship was changed from Roman
Catholic to Protestant.
Perhaps Birinus’ major achievement was that he
demonstrated that the 'obedience and faith' of the
Christianity that he planted in South East England
became a key part of the Britain that we have inherited
today and, in doing so, he helped to shape British history
for centuries to come.
Birinus died in about 650, was buried in Dorchester
Abbey where the stained glass window in his memory,
(above) can be seen. Shortly after his death he was
canonised.
His feast day is 3 December in the Roman Catholic
Church and Eastern Orthodox Church, although some
churches also celebrate his feast on 5 December.
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