Download The Story of St Alban - St Alban`s Anglican Church

In Reality
The Story of St Alban
But in reality, the third century was as
nothing compared with the twentieth
century in terms of Christians giving
their lives for God and their faith. In
fact, it has been estimated that more
people perished on account of
Christian faith in the 20th century than
all previous centuries put together.
Most, of course, were put to death by
the genocidal totalitarian regimes
which were such a curse in the 20th
century, such as those of Hitler, Stalin,
Pol Pot and Idi Amin. But, as the film
"Mississippi Burning" makes clear, it
was even possible for a Christian to
lose his life in God's service in the
United States of America.
Therefore, it is always a good thing for
Christians to learn and to understand
the stories of such heroes as St Alban,
as one never knows when it will be
necessary to apply these lessons in
our own lives.
And while, at first, it might provoke
considerable anxiety to ponder the
potential for negative consequences of
Christian commitment, a balanced
view of Christian history must also take
into account its many triumphs. The
most recent examples of Christian
triumph must surely include the defeat
of Apartheid in South Africa, where, at
one stage the Anglican bishop
Desmond Tutu is reported to have
stood up in front of a crowd, held a
Bible aloft, and said "I inform the Prime
Minister, I have read to the end of the
Book and...WE WIN!"
Detail of the stained glass window in
St Alban’s Anglican Church Highgate
Like many Anglican churches in Australia,
the parish church located on Beaufort
Street Highgate is named after a "saint".
This may, at first glance, appear strange,
since the Anglican Church has no formal
canonisation process as does the Roman
Catholic Church.
Indeed, if one were to come here during
regular worship, one would probably hear
references to all believing Christians
being "saints", following the example of
the New Testament writers, such as Paul
writing to the "saints at Ephesus, the
faithful in Christ Jesus".
Who was Saint Alban and what was so interesting about him?
HEROES
THE ‘EAGLES’
Nevertheless, it has been the Anglican tradition
for centuries to commemorate certain
individuals as heroes of the Church, by naming
our places of worship after them. Most of these
people lived in the first three centuries AD, and
were either apostles or people martyred by the
Roman Empire authorities. St Alban was one
such martyr, a Roman soldier beheaded at the
town of Verulaminum in the
province of Britain. This
town is now called "St
Alban's" and is located in
southern England, not far
from London.
Reasons for hostility were many and varied. It is
clear from reading the Roman philosophers, that
Christian ideas, such as that all people are created
on equal footing by God, including women, slaves,
and foreigners, were regarded as unnatural and
dangerous by the wider Roman society. Likewise,
references to Jesus as the "prince of peace"
appalled a society that celebrated war and warriors,
and revered the "Eagles" or emblems of the army
legions. Even, and especially, the core of the
Gospel, that Jesus died as a redeemer for sins, and
was raised subsequently from the dead, was
anathema to a government structure
that depended for its force and its
power to inflict death on its
st
opponents.
One must remember that
the Roman Empire was a
deeply authoritarian, even
repressive,
society.
Certainly, in its better
periods, it was justifiably
proud of its adherence to
Stained glass in St Alban’s the rule of law, but it was, at
Anglican Church Highgate
all times, ready to harshly
punish
any
convicted
offender, with frequent resort to the death
penalty. It also had a relationship, for the first
three centuries AD, with the Christian church
that was, at best, uneasy, but, frequently,
hostile and persecutory. This was despite there
being no evidence that Christians ever
engaged in insurrection or treason. Indeed
Pilate said of Jesus himself "I find no basis for
a charge against this man", before imposing a
death sentence anyway. Likewise, it was said
privately of St Paul "This man is doing nothing
worthy of death or imprisonment" before he
was shipped off to Rome for trial by the
Emperor and subsequent execution.
The 1
Bristish
GONE TO THE DOGS
Saint
Added to this opposition, by the
third century the Roman Empire
was in crisis and at risk of imminent
collapse. Modern historians tend to
explain the crisis in terms of themes
familiar to us, such as unstable
government, ill-advised and costly wars,
and economic crisis. At the time
however, there was a strong push among
conservatives in Roman society to
explain the crisis in terms of divine
reaction to "impiety". In short, the gods
were said to be angry that many Roman
citizens were abandoning the traditional
religion for Christianity, and so were
withdrawing their protection from Rome
and allowing it to "go to the dogs".
Therefore, there were strident calls in the
Senate and elsewhere to suppress
Thus it was that, in AD 250, the Emperor Decius
decreed that all persons living in the Roman
Empire were required to make a sacrifice to the
appropriate deity for the protection of the empire,
and obtain a certificate that they had done so, to
be produced on demand. Note that the practice,
followed in the Christian liturgy to this day, of
simply praying for such protection, was
insufficient. Christians were unable to comply
with this law, as it conflicted with the divine
command to have no other gods but God. Hence
they were holus bolus, subject to the death
penalty. It is thought by many
historians that the martyrdom of St
Alban
occurred
during
the
subsequent persecution.
MISTAKEN IDENTITY
It appears that Alban was an Stained glass
ordinary Roman soldier, who in St Alban’s
became a Christian under the
ministry of a Christian priest whose name is
unknown. This priest was being sought by the
authorities, but Alban exchanged cloaks with
him, thus fooling the arresting officials and
enabling their original target to make good an
escape. When hauled before the magistrates,
the death sentence originally intended for the
priest was imposed on Alban instead. At his trial,
Alban reportedly sealed his fate by publicly
declaring "I worship the true and living God who
Such incidents appear to have been fairly
common in the third century AD. Far from
suppressing the Church, they enhanced it. A
contemporary commentator, Tertullian, is quoted
as remarking "the more ye mow us down, the
more we grow, for the blood of Christians is
seed" (commonly more loosely translated as "the