Lebuinus

Saint Lebuinus was an Anglo-⁠Saxon missionary, called the Apostle of the Frisians and the patron of Deventer in the present-⁠day Netherlands. He reposed around 773, though one source gives 775.

He was a monk at Ripon, in the monastery of Saint Wilfrid, and resolved to carry the Gospel to the Saxons, following the example of Saints Boniface and Willibrord. In 754 he reached Utrecht, where Bishop Gregory received him and entrusted to him the region of Overijssel, giving him as a companion Marchelm, a disciple of Willibrord. He preached there and around 765 raised a small chapel at Wilp, on the west bank of the river IJssel, and then a larger church at Deventer, on the east bank.

The Saxons burned the church at Deventer, and Lebuinus escaped with difficulty. His Life tells that he then faced the assembly of the Saxons at Marklo, near the river Weser, where he spoke to them of the powerlessness of their gods; they let him depart and preach in the territory assigned to him. He returned to Frisia, rebuilt the church at Deventer and was buried in it; it bears his name today. He died before 776, the year in which another Saxon raid destroyed the church and scattered his relics. The Saxons could not identify his remains in the church even after three days. Saint Ludger rebuilt the church and rediscovered the relics beneath its site. A Gospel book believed to have been written by his own hand remained at Deventer until 882, when the church was destroyed again, by the Normans.

Some sources confuse his story with that of Saint Livinus of Ghent, commemorated on the same day. Lebuinus is a saint of the undivided Church and is commemorated on 12 November (New Calendar).