Saint Boniface: The re-evangelization of the neo-ideological Europe

St. Boniface -name Winfrith-, the missionary of Germany, was born in 675 or 673 AD. ¹ in Devon, England. His father was an English nobleman and his mother of Celtic origin ². He received his Christian education from a monastery in Exeter. His parents’ decision to associate the young Winfrith with a monastery leads us to the safe conclusion that they were devout people. The monastic life appealed to the saint’s soul and he wanted to taste it, even though his father wished to continue his commercial and professional activities. So, after a search, he first found the monastery that gave him rest and then became fluent in Latin and Greek ³. It is worth noting that Winfrith was possessed of an unshakable desire for an apostolic way of life and evangelization of the pagan neighboring nations. This was why, along with his spiritual preparation, he made sure to enrich his knowledge by learning the languages of the surrounding peoples. At Nursling Abbey, in the greater Wessex area, he practised, immersed himself in the monastic life, studied the spiritual gymnastics which characterise it and became its ‘rector’. His fame became widely known and his personality commonly accepted ⁴. ⁵. Although he was elected abbot of the monastery, after the death of his elder, he rejected the honorary position ⁶. He decided to visit the Pope of Rome ⁷ – at that time the Patriarchate of Rome was a sister Orthodox Church, not a heretical one as it is today – and to ask for its blessing in order to move missionarily to pagan lands ⁸ Pope Gregory II, having first tested his faith and ascertained his pure and evangelical intentions, named him Boniface and gave him the blessing to realize the hidden and God-given desires of his heart.

May, 719 AD.
His first stop was Thuringia (an area east of the Rhine). Then, after being driven out of there, he marched to Franconia and then reached Frisland (present-day Dutch province). In this place he worked as a missionary for 3 years, until 722 ⁹. Furthermore, he founded and organized a provincial church as a base in Utrecht (Dutch province in the region of West Frisia). He also visited Hesse (a German province). 722 AD
After his first tour, a reconnaissance we would call it, he returned to Rome in order to inform the Pope of the enlightenment of the Germans. At their meeting something unexpected happened. The Pope consecrated St. Boniface as bishop in all of Germany (east of the Rhine) ¹⁰ Thus, with the alliance of his archpriesthood and the letters of recommendation written by the pontiff himself, he returned to Hesse to continue his work ¹¹. There, by the grace of God – as, after all, all signs are fulfilled – Boniface performed a great miracle that proved to the native inhabitants of the region that the God of the Christians, Jesus Christ, is the only true and powerful one. After this decisive miraculous event in the history of Christianity in Europe, multitudes of people embraced Boniface’s faith, tore down pagan temples and were baptized by the thousands ¹². Then we meet the Saint in Thuringia, working for the sowing of the Word of God, having to face the ignorance of the pagans on the one hand and the hostility of the “brother” bishops of the region on the other. Despite all the difficulties on both sides, from 725 onwards, his work bore fragrant fruit. Group baptisms were performed, churches and monasteries were built. However, the year 732 was decisive for the organisation of the local church in Germany and neighbouring countries. Pope Gregory III of Rome gave the office of Archbishop to Saint Boniface and with it the possibility of ordaining bishops ¹³ From then on, the Illuminator of Germany planned and completed, from the foundations to the top floor, the “building” of the church in much of present-day Europe. For 25 long years he ordained bishops, catechized, built churches and monasteries in such countries as Germany, Holland, England and others. But the jewel of his sacrificial ministry was none other than the monastic community in Fulda, which he founded and spiritually directed. This community consisted of more than four hundred monks, several of whom also served in missionary work ¹⁴. A characteristic of the importance and contribution of this community was that it was directly under the jurisdiction of the Pope. It was – we would say in ecclesiastical terminology – a crusading monastery.

Saint Boniface served as a missionary until the end of his life. He did not become complacent in his conscience by the enormous achievement that God’s gift had accomplished. With a youthful fervor of heart, despite his 77 years, he headed for the pagan Friesians (Friesland), giving himself as a handy instrument to the Word of God for the conquest of the local people. He began preaching, the seed was sown and sprouted in the hearts of the former pagans. The end, however, came unexpectedly. Gloriously for the world, gloriously before the eyes of God. On June 5, 754, this Great Apostle called the new converts to celebrate Pentecost together. In the morning, while the Saint was awaiting the arrival of his guests, a neighboring tribe of pagan Frisians attacked him, both him and his entourage-about 50 people-and led them to martyrdom ¹⁵. At the sight of the sword raised against him, the Saint lifted the Gospel high and placed it on his head, wishing to show that this was the highest principle of his life, the reason for his human course. They killed him by tearing first the Gospel and then his honorable casket ¹⁶; the Gospel was not only the reason for his earthly life, but also for his death on earth, which ensured him eternal life. Indeed, even the martyrdom of the Saint worked missionary, since the cruel and pagan tribe that murdered him turned to Christ immediately afterwards ¹⁷

The Re-evangelisation of 21st century Europe

On the occasion of the stirring and at the same time instructive life of Saint Boniface, a question intimately arises. Is it possible to re-evangelise ‘Christian’ Europe? And if so, how? In 21st century Europe, money and pleasure have replaced God. That is what the majority of us seek, that is what we crave, that is what we live for, that is what we love first, ignoring the most basic commandment of the God-Man: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. This is the first commandment” (Mark 12:30). We have unfortunately turned the tools to serve human needs into cruel oppressors of our lives, forgetting that “the sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath” (Mark 2:27). The rejection of God and the promotion of Neo-Paganism by those who do not believe in the existence of God and Neo-Christianity in the mindset of those who accept – in word only – the existence of God plague the old continent. The former make God of their passions, reminding us of the worship of the ancient gods of Olympus. You are warlike, you have Mars as your god; you are philandering and prone, you worship Aphrodite and Jupiter. The latter, on the other hand, using a religious veneer, amnesty our passions. We interpret the Gospel at will for the sole purpose of performing sin. We deceive ourselves, and perhaps other people, but we actually do ourselves an injustice because the righteous Judge and omniscient Lord knows the truth and abhors hypocrisy. Surely we have all heard those dreadful “Wow” against hypocrites. In essence, we have taken God out of our lives, heading for all sin, as Dostoevsky famously said, “Without God, all is permitted.” And now the question: What are the ways of re-evangelizing our continent? There is one essential and many practical ones. The essential one is the pursuit of holiness; not of others, our elders, our catechists, our priests or our bishops, but of ourselves. It is this that we ought to deal with, it is this that we must change. This, of course, can only be achieved if we approach, if we identify ourselves with God, the Source of holiness. We hear from time to time how a great multitude of people have benefited from these great new saints of our Church, the saints … Paisios, Porphyry, James, George (Karslidis) and others. I wonder how much more beautiful and free from sin the world would be if in every village or city block we had such a Saint?

But let us also look at some practical -in our view- ways, relevant to the missionary activity of Saint Boniface.

• The creation of many dioceses, as St Boniface did.
• The creation of active parishes, composed of missionary-minded parish priests, convinced that they, unlike the heretics who exist in European countries, are the only ones who have the truth and ought to share and spread it.
• Creation and promotion of the already existing monastic communities, following the example of the Saint and his disciples who had founded a multitude of them.

This will enable the Church to function – if you will allow us to say so – as a factory of saints. And when one becomes a Saint, one can only live missionary life. What does this mean? That even if he hides himself in a remote and ill-fated cave, the Lord will bring him out if he wants to, as has happened to many. But even if this should not happen, the prayer of the righteous is a cry in “the ears of God”-let us remember His answer to Moses’ prayer of great intensity of soul, “What cries unto me?” (Exod. 14:15). It is a cry that works beneficially on the souls of men, breaking down the walls of the heart that are hard and rough from various kinds of sins. It restarts, restarts and formats together, the spiritual perspective of everyone, since whether we like it or not man was made to commune with God, to live a heavenly life here and in heaven. Let us not allow the river of immorality and the levelling of every moral value that exists in Europe today to carry us along with it. Let us not forget that there are spiritual oases, such as monasteries and Christian movements, and above all spiritual fathers who act as steadfast rocks in this raging torrent. And, of course, let us not despair, since in the life and miraculous work of Saint Boniface, the Missionary of Europe, the Lord has shown us once again that the Jordan can, if He wills, turn backwards. The memory of Saint Boniface is commemorated on 5 June each year.

1. New Synaxis of the Orthodox Church, Indictus Publications
2. http://orthpedia.de/index.php/Bonifatius_von_Fulda (Fr. Andrew Phillips, Orthodox Christian Scripture)
3. http://orthpedia.de/index.php/Bonifatius_von_Fulda (Fr. Andreas Phillips, Orthodox Christian Scripture)
4. New Synaxis of the Orthodox Church, Indictus Publications
5. Vasileiou Stefanidis, Ecclesiastical History, Papadimitriou Publishers, Athens 1998, p. 270
6. New Synaxis of the Orthodox Church, Indictus Publications
7. Constantine Giannakopoulos, Medieval Western Civilization and the Worlds of Byzantium and Islam, “Kyromanos”, Thessaloniki 1993, p. 103
8. Vasileiou Stefanidis, Ecclesiastical History, Papadimitriou ed., Athens 1998, p. 270.
9. http://orthpedia.de/index.php/Bonifatius_von_Fulda (Fr. Andrew Phillips, Orthodox Christian Scripture)
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11. New Synaxis of the Orthodox Church, Indictus Publications
12. http://orthpedia.de/index.php/Bonifatius_von_Fulda (p.Andreas Phillips, Orthodox Christian Scripture)
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14. http://orthpedia.de/index.php/Bonifatius_von_Fulda (Fr. Andreas Phillips, Orthodox Christian Scripture)
15. http://orthpedia.de/index.php/Bonifatius_von_Fulda (p.Andrew Phillips, Orthodox Christian Scripture)
16. New Synaxis of the Orthodox Church, Indictus Editions
17. http://orthpedia.de/index.php/Bonifatius_von_Fulda (Fr. Andrew Phillips, Orthodox Christian Scripture).