SOME SAINTS DAYS IN JANUARY
1 January (Old Calendar, 14 January according to the new) Basil the
Great (died 379)
The Church reveres him as a fighter for purity of the faith, a great theologian,
calling him a ‘universal teacher’. A man of ‘encyclopaedic cast’, with great
knowledge of mathematics, astronomy and medicine. He was born in 329 in
Caesarea, Cappadocia, into a large family, 5 of his siblings became saints.
He studied in Constantinople and Athens, where he met Gregory, the
Theologian. He was baptised in 355, travelled to the Near East to study the
ascetics, and set up rules for monastic life following them. He was ordained
in 364 and became Archbishop of Caesarea in 370 but continued to lead an
ascetic life, founding alms-houses and hospices. Because of his stance
against Arianism he came into conflict with the emperor’s family, but was
later reinstated as bishop. He died 1 Jan 379, aged 49.
13 January St Kentigern (died 603 or 612 in Glasgow)
St Mungo is the commonly used name of Kentigern. He was the late 6 th
century apostle of the Britannic Kingdom of Strathclyde & founder and
Patron Saint of Glasgow.
\\His baptismal name is Welsh (Cyndeym) from cun=hound & tigerno= Lord,
price, king. ‘Mungo’ is his pet name
from Cymbric language (Welsh) “my
dear one”. His Biography was written
only ca 1195 by Jocelyn of Furness
‘after an Irish document’.
According to this, his mother was the
daughter of the Brythonic King
Lleuddun (Lothian) who ruled in the
‘Haddington region’, probably the
Kingdom of Gododdin in the Old
Norse.
His father was Owain, King of Rheged.
Because the princess had been raped,
she was abandoned in a coracle which
drifted to Culross (Fife).
There Mungo was born and brought up
by St Serf. Aged 25, Mungo became a
missionary ‘on the Clyde’, where
Christianity had first been introduced by St Ninian. He had a cell near the
Molendinar Burn where he later built his church.
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