Monday 5 June 2023. Saint Boniface, Bishop, Martyr(675? – 754). Patron: of brewers; Fulda; Germany
Monday 5 June 2023. Saint Boniface, Bishop, Martyr(675? – 754). Patron: of brewers; Fulda; Germany Edited by Fr. Henry Charles Umelechi For the first forty years of his life Boniface was known as Wynfrith. He was born in Devon and educated at the monastery at Exeter, and then joined the Benedictine abbey at Nursling, near Southampton. He was a teacher and preacher, but he desired to preach the gospel in a foreign land. In 718, Pope Gregory II commissioned him to do so, at the same time changing his name from Wynfrith to Boniface. Hence, Boniface left England, never to return, and took the gospel to the heathen tribes of Germany, where he had great success. In the pope’s commission on May 15, 1719, we have the first record of Winfrith’s new name, Boniface. The pope apparently gave him this new name because the previous day had been the feast…