Holy Hierarch Ecgwine, Bishop of Worcester

Bishop Saint Ecgwine of Worcester

Our father among the saints, the holy bishop Ecgwine of Worcester, is commemorated on 30 December in the Orthodox Church. Ecgwine, most likely related by blood to the Iclingas, nephew to the infamous Penda and to his son Æþelræd, was raised by parents who, unlike their forebear, were devoted Christians, and raised their son befittingly. The young Ecgwine decided early to pursue a career in the Church he loved, became a priest-monk among the Benedictines of Mercia, and spent several years fruitfully preaching the Gospel among the still largely-heathen Angles of the West Midlands. In 693, against his will, he was unanimously at the behest of king, noblemen, clergy and commons elected Bishop of Worcester, whose seat lay in the sub-kingdom of Hwicce.

As bishop, Ecgwine served under the reign of his uncle Æþelræd, who became known in the years after for his patronage of Benedictine monasteries. He quickly became known for his fair and honest judgements in legal disputes, for his personable warmth and friendliness to the common people who came to him, and for his particular love for and defence of the defenceless, poor and marginalised: orphans and widows in particular. In spite of his easygoing manner and his general disregard for rank and circumstance in his own behalf, he nonetheless held forth firmly and with great zeal when it came to theological truths and the interests of the powerless. He sternly rebuked the excesses of his noble kinsmen and friends, and in particular lambasted them for their ill-treatment of the poor: this cost him a great deal of the goodwill among the nobility that had lifted him to office. He soon found himself by these disgruntled nobility slandered and falsely accused of various ecclesiastical abuses, and even the friendship of his uncle Æþelræd could not shield him from the pernicious effects of these slanders.

Ecgwine, trusting in God, ordered himself to be fettered at the ankles in irons, and the keys cast into the River Avon. He thereupon left his diocæse under guard for Dover, where he boarded a ship to Rome to be judged by the Pope of Rome, all the while bearing himself meekly as a prisoner. They made the journey to Rome over land, and at one point crossed the Alps, where he and his party ran out of water. Some among his guards mocked him, and dared him to call forth water from the rocks as Moses had in the desert. They were hushed by those who feared Christ and acknowledged Ecgwine’s innocence, who repeated their entreaty sincerely to the fettered bishop, who, forgiving those who mocked him, knelt down and began to pray earnestly. Wondrously, a pure and clear spring of water burst forth from the rocks, quenching the thirst of the whole party.

When Ecgwine arrived in Rome, he went to pray at the tomb of the Holy Apostles. On the way there he crossed a bridge and a hunger took him; he asked his guards for something to eat. One of them went to fish in the Tiber, and caught a large fish, which had stuck in its gullet the very same key that Saint Ecgwine had thrown into the Avon back in England. This wonder proved Ecgwine’s innocence even to the most unbelieving of his guards, who unshackled him. The Pope of Rome thus gladly cleared Ecgwine’s name and restored to him the eparchy of Worcester.

Æþelræd king grew closer to the saintly Ecgwine after his return from Rome, and entrusted the schooling of his sons to the bishop. He even granted his nephew some woodland on the Avon’s banks, to which he loved to flee alone for prayer. On one occasion, a herdsman named Eof who served Ecgwine went by this wood, and the Holy Theotokos there appeared to him with angels on either side of her, a rood in her arm and an open book in her hands. Eof heard wondrous rousts lifted in song around the place. He fled there amazed and told Ecgwine what had befallen him; after which the saint came thence and himself also saw the same vision. The Holy Theotokos then blessed Ecgwine with her rood, and bade him break the ground there for a monastery: Evesham Monastery, named after the same herdsman Eof who had found the place. This is commemorated as the first appearance of the Mother of God to the people of England.

Not long after the monastery grounds were consecrated, in 704, Æþelræd king gave up his throne to his brother Cœnred, took the tonsure and lived out the rest of his days a brother-monk at Bardney Abbey in Lincs. Cœnred, like his brother, found Ecgwine worthy and more of his support, saw to the funding and construction of Evesham Monastery during its early years, and later encouraged the church council at Alcester to fully recognise the abbey’s rights.

Ecgwine had been for many years a close friend of Saint Aldhelm of Sherborne. When, in 709, Aldhelm reposed in the village of Doulting in Somerset, Saint Ecgwine knew of it through a dream, and hurried southward to accompany the procession of Saint Aldhelm’s remains from Doulting to Malmesbury Abbey, where he was interred. At each stop on the way, Saint Ecgwine had crosses erected in memory of his departed friend.

The Bishop was made the abbot of the new monastery at Evesham the following year, while continuing to perform his duties as bishop. He loved both the monastery, and the Mother of God to whom it was dedicated, and had lifelong a particular devotion to the Holy Theotokos. In the last years of his earthly life, he was struck with a lengthy illness, but this did not diminish but instead strengthened his perseverance in prayer; he reposed in peace on 30 December 717, and his sainthood was recognised very soon after, with his incorrupt and wonderworking relics being placed in honour at the same Benedictine Abbey at Evesham where he had spent much of his life. He was beloved by the folk of the West Midlands, and particularly the poor to whom he had always been close and within reach.

Of the house of the kings of Mercia,
You consecrated all of your youth to the Lord,
And, having become a bishop, you did not hesitate
To reproach the great ones of this world for their faults.
O founder of the holy monastery of Evesham,
Saint Ecgwine, beseech the Lord to save us!