Justus of Canterbury

Saint Justus of Canterbury, hierarch, was the fourth archbishop of Canterbury, sent from Italy by Pope Gregory the Great to convert the Anglo-⁠Saxons. He fell asleep on 10 November, between 627 and 631. He is commemorated on 10 November.

Arrival in Britain

Justus was a member of the Gregorian mission sent to England by Pope Gregory I. Almost everything known of him comes from the Ecclesiastical History of Bede, of the eighth century. Bede says nothing of his origins, so nothing is known of him before he arrived in England. He seems to have come with the second group of missionaries, sent in 601 at the request of Augustine of Canterbury, with a gift of books and all things needed for worship. In that group was also Mellitus, later bishop of London and archbishop of Canterbury.

Bishop of Rochester

Augustine consecrated him bishop, in 604, over a province that included Rochester, a small but fortified town at the junction of Watling Street and the estuary of the Medway. King Æthelberht built him a cathedral church at Rochester, and a charter survives by which land was granted to Justus’s church. With Mellitus, bishop of London, Justus signed a letter written by Archbishop Laurence of Canterbury to the Irish bishops, urging them to adopt the Roman date of Easter; the letter has not survived, but Bede quoted from it. In 614 Justus attended the council of Paris.

Exile and archbishopric

After the death of King Æthelberht, in 616, Justus had to flee to Gaul, but was reinstated the next year. In 624 he was raised to archbishop of Canterbury, and in his time missionaries were sent to Northumbria. After his death he was venerated as a saint and had a place of honour at the abbey of Saint Augustine at Canterbury, where his relics were moved in the 1090s.