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Icon of St. Ethelbert, King
& Martyr of East Anglia (+ 794)
St. Ethelbert is on the right of the Mother of God.
Feast: May 20
St. Ethelbert was king of the
East Angles. He is venerated as a martyr because of his violent death
at the hand of Offa, king of Mercia, whose daughter Ælfthryth he
visited, with a view to marriage, at Sutton Walls. There he was
assassinated in 794, presumably on 20 May as that is the date of his
feast. His body was buried by the river Lugg at Marden and later
translated to Hereford, where the sacred relics remained until the
Danes burnt them in 1050. His head was buried at Westminster. William
of Malmesbury, however, said that St. Ethelbert's relics were still at
Hereford; he clearly felt some misgiving about his cult as a martyr and
invoked the authority of Dunstan as well as the witness of miracles in
favour of its continuance. St. Ethelbert is the titular Saint of
Hereford cathedral, of churches at Marden (Herefordshire), Little Dean
(Gloucestershire), and of eleven others in East Anglia. Reverence to
St. Ethelbert flourished greatly in mediaeval England. Holy Royal
Martyr Ethelbert, pray to God for us!
Icon is by the hand of Peter
Murphy.
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