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→History: added link
Christianity reached England by the middle of the second century. As St. [[Bede]] relates in his ''[[Ecclesiastical History of the English People]]'', in 156 a British King by the name of Lucius wrote to Eleutherus, bishop of Rome, asking to be made a Christian. (Bk 1, Chap 4) With the work of missionaries throughout the first few centuries AD, Christianity spread and took root.
In 596 Pope [[Gregory the Great]] decided to send a mission to the Anglo-Saxons in the British Isles. He chose a to send a group of Benedictine monks, under the leadership of St. [[Augustine of Canterbury]] (not to be confused with [[Augustine of Hippo]]). Augustine and his fellow monks arrived in Kent in 597 and eventually a see city was set up in Canterbury, Augustine being the first Archbishop. It is said that that when they arrived they were "carrying a silver cross and an image of Jesus Christ painted on a board, which thus became, so far as we know, 'Canterbury's first [[icon]].'" (''Lesser Feasts and Fasts'', p. 252)
With Augustine and those who came after him, the British Isles were slowly put under the authority of the Church of Rome. As with the rest of the Western Church, this authority increased over the next 500 years.