A Reasonably Concise Description of History, Tradition and Organization of the Anglican Communion, Episcopal Church, Diocese of South Dakota and Calvary Cathedral.

The gospels record that Joseph of Arimathea received the body of the crucified Jesus and placed it in his own tomb. Possibly his nexus with the last days of Jesus’ earthly life explains why Joseph was associated with the Grail—the legendary cup Jesus might have used at the Last Supper. Over the centuries, the Glastonbury Legend became entwined with others … achieving its most recent misreading in Dan Brown’s DaVinci Code.

Among the earliest depictions of Jesus, a mosaic in southwest Britain.

In the early Dark Ages, Britain offered its first great contribution to world Christianity—St Patrick (d 460?). Son of a deacon, and grandson of a priest, Patrick was captured by slavers at 16, and did forced labor in Ireland for six years. Escaping, he returned to England, was ordained and served local parishes, then mounted his mission that successfully converted the Irish tribes, preserved learning against the depredations of invaders, and inspired a restored monastic life throughout Western Europe.

Jesus Christ commanded his apostles to ‘go and make disciples of all nations’ after his resurrection (Matt 28:19), to form the Church as his Body in the world (1 Cor 12:12). The names of the first missionaries to enter the British Isles are caught at the interplay of history and legend.

The Glastonbury Legend sets the arrival of Christianity in Britain soon after the Resurrection—a dating accepted by the Western Churches until the Reformation—through a mission led by Joseph of Arimathea. The early British Church recited arrival of a second mission, sent from Ephesus by the Apostle John, later that century; and claimed its fundamental traditions from that apostolic source. Archeological evidence suggests that one or both ancient claims approximate the history of the Church in southwest England, from whence it moved east and north.

The British Church flourished during its first centuries, but (in contrast with Christianity in continental Europe and Asia Minor) began decline after the Edict of Milan (AD313) had ended three centuries of persecution in the Roman Empire. The most distant of Rome’s western outposts, Britain was abandoned circa 390, when the Empire centralized military forces to its areas of great economic assets. The Dark Ages—centuries of anarchy, wherein tribal and local battles were frequent, and subordinated only to temporary alliances to resist foreign raiders and invasions—had arrived in Britain, and the Church was a frequently target. The Faith that survived was hardy, but far different from the increasingly powerful imperial Christianity found in Europe and Asia.

It was the wish of the French-born wife of Æthelbert, king of Mercia (southeast England) for a familiar and elegant clergy than the British who withstood the Dark Ages, that allowed Rome to dispatch a mission led by Augustine that arrived in 597. Augustine was designated Archbishop of Canterbury and primate of the English Church—an organizational form that continues to this day. The foundations of today’s great cathedral include the stones of an ancient (and then unused) St Martin Church, which Æthelbert granted to Augustine.