Venerable Mwynen of Morwenstow, Abbess of Hennacliff, and Venerable Modwen of Burton, Abbess of Trensall

Saint Mwynen [Morwenna] of Morwenstow

This week in the Orthodox Church we celebrate the memory of two holy mothers and foundresses of abbeys with very similar names, who are also very often confused – but not with each other. One is a sixth-century Welshwoman named Mwynen (feast day 8 July), one of the veritable synaxis of saintly daughters of Brychan Brycheiniog, who founded an abbey at Morwenstow in Cornwall. The other is Modwen (feast day 6 July), either an Englishwoman or an Irishwoman – it is not quite clear – of the ninth century, who founded an abbey in Burton.

Saint Mwynen [also Morwyn or, in English, Morwenna] was, as abovementioned, one of the many daughters of the legendary king of Brecon. She apparently trained in Ireland for some years before becoming an anchoress; and she chose as the site of her ascetic struggles a place called Hennacliff, or ‘the Raven’s Crag’. This hermitage in Cornwall is situated atop a high cliff facing the ocean and is commonly wracked by storms, but on the rare clear days the coast of Wales can be seen from the promontory. Saint Mwynen built the church there with her own hands, for the benefit of the local people. She bore the stone on her head from beneath the cliff. Where she sat to rest for a brief while, a holy well sprang up. This holy well can still be seen, if one crosses a few fields from the church.

When she was dying, her brother Saint Nectan came from Hartland to visit her. She asked him to lift her up – it must have been a clear day, the day of her repose – on the promontory, so that she might look again on her homeland of Wales one last time. Saint Nectan did as she bade him, and soon after looking her last upon her earthly homeland she was called forth into her heavenly one. She was buried at the church in Morwenstow. Sometime later, a painting was found on the north wall of the chapel at this church, thought to be a representation of Saint Mwynen. It shows a gaunt lady clasping to her breast a scroll in her left hand; her right hand is raised in blessing over a prostrated monk. Holy virgin and abbess Mwynen, pray unto Christ our God that our souls may be saved!

Church of St Morwenna and St John the Baptist, Cornwall

Today we also remember Modwen of Burton, who may also have been called Modwenna or Monenna. The accounts of this saint, as the Catholic hagiographer Alban Butler notes, have been hopelessly confused and entangled. Acts and events from the lives of three distinct women were interwoven together in the traditional Lives accredited to her. Of these, the one to which Fr Alban assigns the most credibility and meaning is the following epigram:

‘Moninne of the mountain of Cuilenn was a fair pillar;
she gained a triumph, a hostage of purity, a kinswoman of great Mary.’

She was given land by the king of Mercia sometime in the 800s to found a nunnery for women, which she did at Trensall in the Forest of Arden. The king also entrusted to her his daughter Éadg‎ýð, who would go on to found her own monastery at Polesworth. Late in her life she moved to Andressey near Burton-on-Trent, where she founded a hermitage for herself. She lived there seven years before her blessed repose in the Lord. Her relics were later translated into the church at Burton. Holy Mother Modwen, pray unto Christ our God that our souls may be saved!

St Modwen’s Church, Burton-upon-Trent