Holy Father Eosterwine the Venerable of Wearmouth

Saint Peter’s Church at Monkwearmouth

The seventh of March is the feast of Eosterwine, the second abbot at Monkwearmouth and kinsman and successor in that office to Saint Biscop (Baducing).

As Biscop’s cousin, Eosterwine was a high-born Northumbrian who served as Ecgfrið King’s þegn (armed retainer) from his maturity until he reached the age of twenty-four when, like Biscop, he conceived a powerful desire to turn to the life of contemplation in God. It was natural that he would join Saint Biscop’s monastery at Wearmouth. With Wearmouth being attached fully and zealously to the Benedictine Rule and with Biscop himself insistent on the equality of the brothers, Eosterwine laboured there as a simple brother-monk for five years, gaining a reputation for meekness. Despite his high birth he did not find any task too menial or unworthy, and he worked with his hands in all manner of weather without complaint beside his brothers: ‘he took pleasure in threshing and winnowing, milking the and ewes and cows, and employed himself in the bakehouse, the garden, the kitchen, and in all the other labours of the monastery with readiness and submission’. He so impressed his brothers that he was prevailed upon to become a priestmonk in 679. It was said that when he heard confessions and gave penances, ‘when he was compelled to reprove a fault, it was done with such tender sadness that the culprit felt himself incapable of any new offence which should bring a cloud over the benign brightness of that beloved face’.

Despite his tender age, with the full approval of the brothers at Wearmouth, Abbot Biscop appointed Eosterwine co-abbot and head of Saint Peter’s Abbey at Wearmouth (shown above) in 682. As abbot, he ruled gently and continued to think of himself as a brother of the monks rather than as a superior. ‘Oftentimes, when he went forth on the business of the monastery, if he found the brethren working, he would join them and work with them, by taking the plough-handle, or handling the smith’s hammer, or using the winnowing machine, or anything of like nature… He ate of the same food as the other brethren, and in the same apartment; he slept in the same common room as he did before he was abbot.’ He ruled for four years, but a plague struck the community at Wearmouth and killed many of the brothers, including Abbot Eosterwine. The holy abbot had a foreknowledge of his own passing, and he took the chance to gather the brothers around him and offer them the kiss of peace before he departed this life, in his sleep, on the seventh of March, 686. He was much mourned by the Wearmouth monks, and not least by his kinsman Abbot Biscop, but he had departed in blessedness and with no grudges toward any man.

Holy Father Eosterwine of Wearmouth, pray to Christ our God to save us sinners!