Saint Eskil of Tuna
Today in the Orthodox Church we commemorate yet another Old English missionary saint to the North: Saint Eskil of Tuna – that is, the modern town of Eskilstuna which was renamed in his honour. He lived in the late eleventh century, and is notable among the English saints in that he was martyred by the heathen after the Great Schism, and yet is still recognised as a Western saint by the Holy Orthodox Church.
We have very few, and late, sources available for the life of this saint – the best and most realistic of these was written down by the Roman Catholic Bishop Brynjólfr Alfgautarson, the monastic and episcopal student of Thomas Aquinas, in the 1300s. Eskil [OE Oscytel, ON Áskill, NE Haskell] was of English extraction and upbringing, and spent most of his adult years in Södermanland where, at the behest of Saint Sigefrið of Växjö, he worked as a missionary bishop. He was allowed to preach there by Ingi Steinkelsson ‘the Elder’, who was king at that time and who was baptised during Saint Eskil’s tenure as bishop.
Ingi was ousted from his kingship by the Swedes after he refused to offer blót to the heathen gods at the moot in Uppsala, as was customary for the king to do. In his stead, the men of Sweden set up Ingi’s brother-in-law Sveinn as their king – thereafter named Blót-Sveinn because he made an oath to honour the heathen gods with blood. He kept his word and held the blót to the Æsir at Strängnäs, sacrificing many fee and sheep, sprinkling the gathered Swedes with their blood, and eating himself of the sacrificial flesh. When Eskil first got wind of this gathering, he made the thirty-kilometre walk eastward to Strängnäs himself and interrupted the sacrifice, telling the heathen there to repent of their idolatry and return to Christ.
Blót-Sveinn did not take kindly to this imposition by the bishop of Tuna, and neither did the gathered heathen at Strängnäs. Howling with rage, the throng began to take up stones and hurl them at the bishop, smiting him to the earth. In the icons and holy images of the hieromartyr, one beholds him holding three white stones in token of the manner of his holy death and witness for his Lord and God Jesus Christ. Some of his Swedish friends went thither to Strängnäs to fetch his body, and had him brought home in great honour and buried in the kirk at Tuna.
As for Blót-Sveinn, he was soon to reap the cost of his usurpation. For after three years in exile in Västergötland, Ingi Steinkelsson rode back into his homeland with a small band of retainers. In the early dawn glimmer, Ingi’s men found the house where Steinn and his followers were yet asleep, ringed it about and set fire to the timbers. Sveinn’s men trapped inside were burned alive – among them one Þjáfi, who was one of Sveinn’s jarlar. As for Sveinn himself, the Hervarar saga and the Orkneyinga saga differ on whether he himself was burned alive in the house, or whether he was slain on his way out, trying to flee from the flames. Inge ruled for a number of years more, and Christianity gained a better foothold in Sweden thereafter.
The date on which Saint Eskil was stoned to death has been traditionally recorded as the eleventh of June, his original feast-day which is remembered both by the Orthodox Church and by the Roman Catholic Diocæse of Strängnäs. However, in the broader Catholic Church, his feast day was moved to the following day, the twelfth of June, so as not to interfere with the commemoration of Holy Apostles Bartholomew and Barnabas on the same day. The sixth of October is celebrated as the date of the translation of his relics in Eskilstuna.
Holy bishop and martyr Eskil, witness for our Lord Jesus Christ among the northern heathen, pray unto Him for us that our souls may be saved!
No comments:
Post a Comment