Saint Egwin of Worcester

 

Feast December 30

Egwin of Worcester was of a noble family, possibly a descendant of the Mercian kings.

Photo by: Oosoom

Devoted to God since his youth, he succeeded to the see of Worcester in 662.

Though a good bishop, protector of orphans and widows, and a fair judge, he incurred the animosity of people who resisted his insistent teaching on marital morality and clerical celibacy.

The resentment of some found its way to his ecclesiastical superiors, and Egwin undertook a pilgrimage to Rome to place his case before the Pope. One account relates that on crossing the Alps with a few companions, there was no water.

Parched, those who did not appreciate his sanctity, mockingly suggested that he ask for water, like Moses. But others, who knew him well, reverently beseeched him to, indeed, pray for water. As Egwin prostrated himself in prayer, a stream of crystalline water issued forth from a rock.

Detail inside a church, tan and gold statue of five men seated in niches, one larger and more imposing than the others, probably St. Egwin. On his return to England, Egwin founded the famous abbey of Evesham under the patronage of Mary Most Holy.

Around 709, he again journeyed to Rome, this time in the company of Kings Cenred of Mercia, and Offa of the East Saxons, and received many privileges for his monastery from Pope Constantine.

In the tenth century Evesham became one of the great Benedictine abbeys of Medieval England.

St. Egwin died on December 30, 717 and was buried at the monastery he had founded.