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Ecumenical allsorts

02 August 2013

ST MILDRED is not one of our better-known saints, although she seems to have had the traditional career for an Anglo-Saxon saint. A princess, daughter of the King of Mercia, she escaped to a French convent to avoid an unwelcome marriage, and later came back to Britain as a nun, before becoming, in 694, an abbess at Minster-in-Thanet, an abbey that her mother had founded.

She is said to have had the virtues of tranquillity of temper and generosity to the poor, especially women and children, and died after a long illness. Her tomb became a place of pilgrimage, and her remains were translated to St Augustine's, Canterbury, in 1035.

A Benedictine nunnery has been revived at Thanet, and on St Mildred's feast day, the Papal Nuncio, Archbishop Antonio Mennini (pictured, in mitre), came on a visit, and preached during the solemn mass in the Anglican Parish Church of St Mary the Virgin, Canon Jim Rosenthal (next to nuns) says. Greek Orthodox as well as Anglican clergy joined the Roman Catholic nuns who were there to greet him.

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