Gregory the Great and a papal missionary strategy

Abstract

In his Ecclesiastical History of the English People Bede includes a deservedly famous letter of Gregory I containing the Pope’s instructions to his missionaries in Kent on how to go about converting the heathen English to Christianity. The letter is addressed to Abbot Mellitus, one of the band of reinforcements sent to England from Rome in June 601. In it Mellitus is asked to instruct Augustine, established at Canterbury for the last four years, that ‘the sanctuaries of the idols among this nation should on no account be destroyed’; by all means, let the idols go; but the temples, if they be soundly constructed, need only be sprinkled with holy water and consecrated to the worship of the true God. In this way hardened English minds may be won to a stepwise ascent and not be required to make too large a leap of faith.