Churches built by St. Augustine in Canterbury

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St. Pancras

• Outside the walls of Canterbury, and not far from St. Martin Church a pagan temple which was used for the King worship.
• He offered it to Augustine who changed it to a church dedicated to St. Pancras.
• This was the first church dedicated by St. Augustine.
• The most remarkable issue that St. Pancras church was not mentioned by Bede.
  One explanation for this was that it became in the precinct of St. Peter and Paul (St. Augustine) abbey.
• What remains of St. Pancras today is old brick arch, which was build in the 14th C.
• We can also trace the foundation and remain of one of the colonnade that used to separate the apse from the nave.
• The architecture of this church had some similarity to a a Saxon church in Reculver castle about (8 miles from Canterbury).
• There was also many resemblance of this Church to that of St. Martin, from which it was in all copied. But it differed in its larger size and, like many italian churches, its nave and chancel  were separated, not by a single archway, but by a colonnade forming three arches (see above); and by a presbytery with the parallel sides.
• One of the probable reason of building this church was that St. Martin could be a very small church for 40+ monks and ever expanding number of new converts.

The original church of Canterbury Cathedral

• In the year A.D. 598, when St. Augustine was already an archbishop; King Ethelbert gave  an old Roman church which was  probably in the the ground of his royal palace inside the city to Augustine to be his metropolitan See.
• The tradition, though no solid proof, said that Ethelbert retired  in Reculver Castle.
• With the support of the King they recovered this for a church and consecrated in the name of the Holy Saviour, This was called later the Church of Christ of Canterbury.
• We do not know when the church was consecrated. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, it was on the 9th June on the day of SS. Primus and Felicianus, probably in the year A.D. 602 or 603.
• The remains of that church was completely uprooted by Lanfranc, when he rebuilt the cathedral after AD 1067.
• But Eadmer in his Cantor described the church before 1067, as the same Church built by Augustine.
  It was in structure similar to Italian basilica, with the hight alter in the west end (as in St. Peter's in Rome at that time) and was dedicated to Pope Gregory.
• The chair of the new archbishop was in that chair. But "St. Augustine Chair" which is now in the Canterbury Cathedral is a medieval replica.

St. Peter and St. Paul

• After so doings Augustine obtained from the King the permission to build a new church and monastic dwelling in the land adjacent to St. Pancras.
• The church was not consecrated by St. Augustine but by dedicated in honour of St. Peter and St. Paul after the death of St. Augustine by his successor (Archbishop Laurence).
• The King endowed it with various benefactions. The name was changed to St. Augustine Abbey by St. Dunstan later.
• Their dwelling were build next to these churches which was needed to increasing number of new monks.
• Their original dwelling in Dorobernia was flourishing. St. Augustine changed it to  a proper monastic dwelling and  appointed Peter , one of the companion as the first abbot of the monastery.
• St. Augustine's Abbey flourished in the Middle Ages. It had an excellent library and was one of the main centre of ecclesiastical learning in England.
• Thomas mentioned many relics remained to his days related to,St. Augustine .These were:
  1. Two-forked cross
  2. Seamless tunic
  3. Hair of the blessed virgin
  4. Rod of Aron
  5. Bible send by Pope Gregory to St. Augustine.

In conclusion there were three churches before the death of Augustine:  St. Martin, St. Pancras and the Holy Saviour.