Hierarch Mellitus of Canterbury

Hierarch Mellitus was a Roman aristocrat, likely abbot of the monastery of St. Andrew on the Caelian Hill in Rome, before St. Gregory the Great sent him to England in 601 as part of the second wave of the Gregorian mission (following St. Augustine of Canterbury). In 604 Augustine consecrated him Bishop of London to evangelize the kingdom of the East Saxons; he baptized King Sæberht of Essex and built a church dedicated to St. Paul on the site that later became St. Paul's Cathedral.

After Sæberht's death, his pagan sons demanded Mellitus give them communion without baptism; on his refusal he was expelled from London and forced into a brief exile in Gaul along with Bishop Justus of Rochester. Recalled to England by Archbishop Laurence of Canterbury, unable to reclaim the London see amid continuing pagan resistance, he became the third Archbishop of Canterbury in 619, succeeding Laurence.

Tradition credits him with saving Canterbury's cathedral and much of the town from a fire through the power of prayer. He died on April 24, 624, and was buried at St. Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury, venerated for both his missionary labors and posthumous miracles. As a pre-Schism Western saint from an era when the English Church was in communion with the Orthodox East, he is accepted in Orthodox veneration alongside Augustine, Laurence, Justus, and the other early Canterbury archbishops.

His feast is kept on April 24/May 7.