According to Catholic and Orthodox tradition this James ( nr 2 or 3 ), is called ‘ the Less ’, sometimes ‘ St James the Just ’. He was , as a relative of Jesus , such an important figure in the early Christian community in Jerusalem , that the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus mentions his execution in the year 62 . Legend has it that he was thrown off the temple walls and then beaten to death with a fullers ’ club , Josephus reports stoning , which was a judicial murder about which the Community complained to the Roman Procurator , where upon the High Priest Annas lost his job . The great esteem which James enjoyed with his contemporaries justifies that he is today the Patron Saint of pastry-and cake makers , a trade which has produced the goods , at least before the cake mixture or deep freeze was invented .
14 May St Matthias ( First Century ) He was chosen to replace Judas to make up the number of the apostles to twelve once more . Acts 1 : 21-2 , describes the vote taken by the apostles to choose from 2 candidates . With this brief appearance in the New Testament definite information about him ends . Tradition places him preaching in Judea , also in Cappadocia ( Southern Turkey ). There is a fictitious ‘ Acts of Andrew and Matthias ’ which links him to Ethiopia . Clement of Alexandria makes him one of the 72 disciples sent out to preach throughout the world . His emblem is an axe , he is said to have been beheaded , his claimed relics were taken to Jerusalem and later sent to Rome by the empress Helen .
26 May Saint Augustine of Canterbury ( died 604 ) - ( and not of Hippo !) He was a Benedictine monk who became the first Archbishop of Canterbury in 597 . He is considered to be the ‘ Apostle of the English Church ’. He had been Prior of a monastery in Rome when Pope Gregor the Great chose him in 596 to lead a mission to Britain to Christianize the Anglo-Saxons and King Ethelberth of Kent . Ethelberth had married a Christian princess from Gaul ( Bertha ) Augustine is said to have landed on the island of Thanet where a stone marks the place . The King gave the missionaries land to build an Abbey outside Canterbury , where St Augustine was buried .
He is said to have baptised thousands on Christmas day 597 , He founded
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