When Augustine and his companions arrived from Rome on the south coast of England in 597, he was welcomed by the pagan king of Kent, who had married a Frankish Christian princess. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church says that Augustine was sent “to refound the Church in England.”[1] But, as historian Diarmaid MacCulloch writes, the church was already there. When Augustine reached Canterbury, Canterbury already had a bishop who ministered to the Frankish colony.[2]
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