Biography
Justus of Canterbury
About Justus of Canterbury
Justus arrived in England in 601 with the second group of missionaries sent by Gregory the Great to assist Augustine. In 604 Augustine consecrated him as the first bishop of Rochester. Whether Justus had previously been a monk remains uncertain: Bede does not say that he was, and the claim comes from later monastic writers.
Together with Laurence of Canterbury and Mellitus of London, he appealed to British and Irish Christians to adopt Roman customs. The surviving letter extracts have been criticized for their tactless wording, and the appeal appears to have made little impression. This was a dispute between Christian communities, not simply missionary work among people unfamiliar with Christianity.
After King Æthelberht’s death, the missionaries lost royal protection. Justus withdrew to Gaul, then returned after Eadbald’s conversion. He became archbishop of Canterbury in 624, succeeding Mellitus, and received the pallium from Pope Boniface V. He consecrated Romanus for Rochester and Paulinus for the northern mission.
Justus was buried with his predecessors at Saint Augustine’s Abbey. During the abbey’s eleventh-century rebuilding, the archbishops’ relics were transferred behind the high altar, and Goscelin wrote his life. His feast is November 10. A modern church at Rochester bears his name. Its first building was consecrated in 1956, but collapsed in the storm of 1987. The replacement was dedicated in 1991, after the congregation had continued worshipping in temporary accommodation.
Rochester Cathedral also remembers him through the Justus Way, a pilgrimage route from Aylesford. The suggestion that he himself traveled by that route remains a possibility, rather than an established itinerary.
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