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St. Birinus of Dorchester

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Saints and feasts

St. Birinus of Dorchester

First Bishop of Dorchester, Confessor

Birinus received a mission to Britain from Pope Honorius. He baptized King Cynegils of the West Saxons and established his episcopal seat at Dorchester on the Thames.

Sources

The life below remains the existing Butler-based reading, with its edition citation. The profile preserves the feast date and source title already listed in the library. Additional personal dates and historical details are shown only when separately documented.

Episcopal seat: Dorchester on the Thames
This is Dorchester in Oxfordshire, distinct from Dorchester in Dorset.

Butler sourceAlban Butler, The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints, Volume XII (December), Thomas Richardson and Son, Derby, for the Catholic Book Society, 1846; December 3, “St Birinus, First Bishop of Dorchester, Confessor,” p. 82.

Butler’s Lives of the Saints (1846)Alban Butler, The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints, Volume XII (December), Thomas Richardson and Son, Derby, for the Catholic Book Society, 1846; December 3, “St Birinus, First Bishop of Dorchester, Confessor,” p. 82.

The reading

ⓘ Butler source

Alban Butler, The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints, Volume XII (December), Thomas Richardson and Son, Derby, for the Catholic Book Society, 1846; December 3, “St Birinus, First Bishop of Dorchester, Confessor,” p. 82.

Birinus was a priest who sought permission from Pope Honorius to preach the Gospel in Britain. Butler records the pope’s approval of that desire and Birinus’s consecration as bishop before the journey. His mission brought him to the kingdom of the West Saxons.

Among those whom he baptized was King Cynegils. Birinus established his episcopal seat at Dorchester on the Thames, in the region later served from Winchester. Butler recalls the churches he built and consecrated and the people brought to the Christian faith through his ministry.

He was buried at Dorchester, and his remains were later taken to Winchester. Butler cites Bede among the witnesses to this early English mission. The notice also remembers the surviving painted windows at Dorchester that told the story of his arrival and preaching. This Dorchester is the town on the Thames, distinct from Dorchester in Dorset.

Historical note

An original Novena Regina reading adapted and summarized from the cited pre-1962 source. This is not a transcription of Butler’s words.

The reading distinguishes Dorchester on the Thames from the town in Dorset and leaves the approximate death year unasserted.

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