Holy Hierarchs Eborius, Restitutus and Adelphius of Britain

The Constantinian Baths in Arles, France

The sixth of February is the feast day of three saintly bishops of Britain who attended, at the behest of Emperor Saint Constantine, the Synod of Arles in 314. This council was concerned with condemning the hæresy of Donatism, as well as several other issues of Church discipline and ecclesiology such as baptism, the consecration of bishops and the dating of Pascha. The three Orthodox Romano-British bishops commemorated today are Eborius of York, Restitutus of London and Adelphius, possibly of Caerleon. Eborius, at least, is a Latinised Brythonic name which in modern Welsh would be rendered Ifor, a diminutive of the name Ifan or John.

The theological stakes of that fourth-century local council were quite high, and the disillusionments that give rise to Donatism are still very much with us. There is nothing new under the sun. Even now, even today, in both the Latin and in the Greek wings of the Church, it is hard indeed to dismiss the sorts of temptations that go into this form of hæretical impulse. The Church has had within it, and has been led by, horrendously wicked sinners – abusers, blasphemers, violent, drunken, depraved, opportunistic, greedy, traitorous – and has somehow managed to survive two millennia. Bishops like Eborius and Restitutus and Adelphius of Britain were able only to restore some level of trust in the Church, on the one hand by tightening the reins firmly on what was and was not morally allowed in the Church, particularly by clergy; and on the other hand by disavowing any pretensions to absolute moral perfection in this fallen world. These three, and the forty others present at Arles, earned their saintly haloes by making known to all their own sinful ordinariness.

The Synod of Arles was also politically and ecclesiologically significant, in part, because it was the first time that issues of canon law had been discussed in the Western Church outside the personal purview of the Bishop of Rome, and it had been called by a Christian emperor ruling in the East. It was very much so a forerunning and type of the First Œcumenical Council at Nicæa, which would also be convoked by the Emperor Constantine.

The mention of these three bishops at the Synod of Arles is, in addition, one of the few firm indications we currently have from primary sources that any sort of organised Christian community existed in Roman Britain, which would have been established by Saint Joseph of Arimathæa and Saint Aristobulus of the Seventy. Holy fathers Eborius, Restitutus and Adelphius, pray unto Christ our God on behalf of us sinners!

Holy Bishops of Britain taught us true faith,
And attended church councils in order to defend it.
Eborius, Restitutus and Adelphius,
Pray for us now in our time of need.