Cuthbert

Cuthbert of Lindisfarne (c. 635 probably at Dunbar, Scotland, † March 20 687 on the Farne Islands ) was a Northumbrian monk and Bishop of Lindisfarne. He is said to have worked many miracles and is revered as a saint.

Life

The most important source for the life of Cuthbert Bede's Vita sancti is Cudbercti.

Childhood

Cuthbert was probably born around 635 near Dunbar on the South East coast of Scotland. His mother is said to Sabina, the poet's sister Cenn Fáelad mac Ailella, have been.

According to Bede, he was a normal boy playing competed with their peers. After he had revealed to an angel as he could heal his lame hip, he came to believe. With a prayer he could appease a storm and save monks from distress. He was a shepherd when he saw the soul of St. Aidan was carried by angels into heaven. Deeply moved by this vision, he decided to renounce the world.

Monk in Melrose 651-658

Cuthbert entered 651 in the Benedictine monastery of Melrose one, as Eata was abbot there, and was educated by Irish monks. He was taught by the prior Boisil and surpassed the other monks of discipline, piety, zeal and erudition. He possessed great physical strength and was of robust physique, although slightly hobbled by his hip ailment life. He was friendly and pleasant nature.

Prior Ripon 658-661

As king of Deira Ealhfrith founded a monastery at Ripon, Cuthbert followed his abbot Eata and became praepositus hospitum ( Prior). After Ealhfrith became a follower of the Roman Rite, Eata and Cuthbert had to return to Melrose with the other supporters of the iro -Scottish rite in the year 661.

Monk in Melrose 661-664

In the year 664 was invading a plague Britain. Cuthbert became seriously ill, but he soon recovered again, while his teacher Boisil died. Cuthbert then took over the office of the Priors, evangelizing on some multi-week trips in the wider community of the monastery, because many inhabitants had fallen away from the faith.

Prior Lindisfarne in 664-676

Eata 664 was appointed by the monks as abbot of Lindisfarne after Colman had to leave the monastery. Soon after, he became Bishop of Lindisfarne and Cuthbert brought from the monastery of Melrose as provost and teachers to the monastery of Lindisfarne. Cuthbert leaned the decisions of the Synod of Whitby and led with patience and forbearance one Roman rite until then iro -Scottish monastery. In later years he retired to a secluded part of the monastery in the solitude.

Hermit on Inner Farne 676-684

676 he withdrew from the monastery on one of the uninhabited Farne Islands, southeast of Lindisfarne, returned. There he built a pit house as a hermitage and another building as a guest house. In the following years he lived there alone, cared for by his friars with food. Later he built on barley to feed themselves.

The fame of his holiness spread in Northumbria and increasingly attracted pilgrims to the island. Therefore, he laid down the rules for the handling of the pilgrims with the Eider ducks and other seabirds nesting here. He has created the most first nature law of history. In his honor, is also called St. Cuthbert's Duck ( in English Cuddy Duck) the eider duck.

In 684 Cuthbert left his hermitage, met with the abbess Elfleda, a sister of the king Ecgfrith and tells her the King's death ahead.

Bishop of Hexham and Lindisfarne 684-685 685-687

The Council of Twyford elected under the chairmanship of King Ecgfrith and Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury in the year 684 Cuthbert as the successor of the deposed bishop Trumbert bishop of Hexham. However, Cuthbert of Lindisfarne preferred. So exchanged Cuthbert and Eata 685 diocesan and Eata was for the second Bishop of Hexham, while Cuthbert was consecrated on March 26, 685 Bishop of Lindisfarne.

As Bishop Cuthbert often traveled in the company of young clergyman preaching through his diocese and visited the communities, but withdrew again and again in his hermitage. Legend has it that the then priest Æthelwald to 686 Bishop Cuthbert of Lindisfarne accompanied on his travels and witnessed how Cuthbert Æthelwalds sister of a protracted and painful illness healed. A plague in his diocese claimed many lives; some communities were almost depopulated.

In January 687, he returned to the Farne Islands, where he died two months later on March 20, 687 after a three-week illness (wasting and severe bleeding ulcers on the feet). He was buried in the monastery church of Lindisfarne in a stone sarcophagus near the altar.

Miracle

St. Cuthbert is said to have effected many miracles during his lifetime:

• Deliverance from distress
• Extinguishing fires
• Healing the sick
• Precognition
• Find by food when hungry
• Exorcism
• Transformation of water into wine

Also on Cuthbert's grave is occurred numerous healings of the sick.

And relic veneration of saints

Bishop Eadberht allowed the monks to exhume his predecessor Cuthbert on 20 April ( 11 Bestattungstag ) in order to embed it into an above-ground sarcophagus near the altar. According to legend, the body was found entirely incorrupt. Through this miracle Cuthbert rose to fame throughout the country.

Bishop Eadfrith supported the cult of St. Cuthbert and let create a hagiography of an anonymous author 699-705. To 720 he induced the Venerable Bede the book on to revise " The life of the Holy Father Cuthbert " and write a lyric and a based on eyewitness reports advanced prose version. To 730, Bishop Æthelwald in honor of St. Cuthbert's build an artfully crafted stone cross, on which his own name was inscribed.

Some time later plundered the monastery of Lindisfarne Scots. St. Cuthbert is said to have the effect that the whole enemy army fell into a crevasse.

Bishop Aldhun transferred 995 Cuthbert's bones from Chester to Durham 998, and consecrated a stone church as a resting place of Saint Cuthbert. 1104 Cuthbert's grave was opened again and reburied his body in the new Norman cathedral. At the opening of the coffin was found a small hymnal, now known as the Stonyhurst Gospel, which is owned by the British Library. The coffin was moreover for accommodation of the head of St. Oswald, who is the Cuthbert added on some representations. The magnificent shrine in which Cuthbert now rested, was the center of attraction for many pilgrims. The treasures that were donated to the monastery, are listed in several registers still extant today. In addition to treasures of precious stones and gold here find strange things like the claw of a griffin, multiple gripping eggs, wood of the tree under which Abraham met the three angels, a piece of the rod of Moses, and many garments of other saints.

In 1540 the monastery of Durham by Henry VIII was expropriated and confiscated the treasures. The shrine of St. Cuthbert was broken; they found the body still intact, dressed in his vestments. Later they buried behind the altar, under a marble slab, where it still rests him in the cathedral of Durham, today. When the grave was 1826/1827 re-opened, they found only a skeleton with rotting clothes; some relics were taken. James Raine exposed the alleged surviving body of the saint as a pious forgery.

Cuthbert is one of the most important saints of the Anglo-Saxon Church.

• Catholic Memorial Day: March 20

• Memorial Anglican: March 20 or September 4

• Attributes: otter or Swan, pillar of fire

• " Miracle Worker of Britain "
• National saint of the Anglo-Saxon and the Celtic Church
• " Patron saint of Northumbria "
• Saint of sailors

Swell

• Venerable Bede, Vita sancti Cudbercti
• Venerable Bede, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum
• Symeon of Durham, History of the Church of Durham