Saint Honorius: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

Honorius (died September 30, 653) was an Archbishop of Canterbury (627 - 653). A Roman by birth, he may have been one of those chosen by Gregory the Great for the original evangelization of England, although it seems more likely that he was a member of the second party of missionaries, sent in AD 601. In 627, he was consecrated as Archbishop by Paulinus of York at Lincoln. When Paulinus, after the death of King Edwin of Northumbria, fled before the storm which broke over the Church in Northumbria, he was received by Honorius and appointed to the Bishopric of Rochester.

Honorius consolidated the work of converting the English by sending forth St Felix, the Burgundian, to Dunwich; he also probably consecrated Felix as the first Bishop of East Anglia. Honorius died in AD 653.

• from G.M. Bevan's "Portraits of the Archbishops of Canterbury" (1908).