Saint Alban, THE Martyr

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 373.

Saint Alban was the first British Christian martyr. Along with his fellow saints Julius and Aaron, Alban is one of three martyrs remembered from Roman Britain. Alban is listed in the Church of England calendar for 22 June, and he continues to be venerated in the Anglican, Catholic, and Orthodox Communions. In 2006 some Church of England clergy suggested that Alban should replace St. George as the patron saint of England. There have also been claims that he should be patron saint of Britain as a whole.

According to Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, Alban was a pagan living at Verulanium (now St. Albans), who converted to Christianity, and was executed by decapitation on a hill above the Roman settlement of Verulanium. St. Albans Abbey was later founded near this site.

The date of Alban's execution has never been firmly established. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles list the year 283, according to the Venerable Bede: "when the cruel Emperors first published their edicts against the Christians."

Alban sheltered a Christian priest in his home, and was converted and baptized by him. When the "impious prince", as Bede had called him, sent Roman soldiers to Alban's house to look for the priest, Alban exchanged cloaks with the priest and was arrested in his stead at Chantry Island. Alban was taken before the magistrate, who was furious at the deception and who ordered that Alban be given the punishment due to the priest if he had indeed become a Christian. Alban declared, "I worship and adore the true and living God who created all things." These words are still used in the prayer at St. Albans Abbey. St. Alban was eventually sacrificed to the Roman gods and was condemned to death. He was taken out of the town across the River Ver to the top of the hill opposite. The reputed place of his beheading is where St. Albans Cathedral now stands. Bede tells several legends associated with the story of Alban's execution. On his way to the execution, Alban had to cross a river, and finding the bridge full of people, he made the waters part and crossed over on dry land. And the executioner was so impressed with Alban's faith that he also converted to Christianity on the spot, and refused to kill him.

In June 2002 a scapula (shoulder blade), believed to be a relic of St. Alban, was presented to St. Albans Cathedral and placed inside the saint's restored 13th century shrine. The largest relic of St. Alban in England is the thigh of the protomartyr preserved at St. Michael's Benedictine Abbey, Farnborough, Hampshire, which was removed from the St. Pantaleon's reliquary in the 1950s.