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Saint Augustine, first Archbishop of Canterbury, is also known as “Apostle of the English”. It is not know when he was born, but he died 26 May, 604. Nothing is also known of his youth except that he was probably a Roman of the upper class, and that early in life he become a monk in the famous monastery of St. Andrew founded by St.Gregory on the Cælian Hill.
Bede tells of the first meeting of St. Gregory with the English people which is said to have lead to their convertion to Christianity. Gregory was in the Roman market place where came upon the some boys with fair complexions, handsome faces, and lovely hair who were being sold and he turned to the boys and asked:
“What is the name of your race?
“We are called Angli,” they answered.
“Angles?” he exclaimed. “Say rather they are angels! What a pity that God’s grace does not dwell within those beautiful brows!”
In 596ad Pope St. Gregory I selected Augustine to head a mission to convert the Anglo-Saxons. Missionaries had gone to Britain years before but the Saxon conquest of England had forced these Christians into hiding. Augustine and his monks were to bring these Christians back into the fold and convince the warlike conquerors to become Christians themselves.
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 The journey to Britain was difficult and dangerous but the party, which had lost its nerve once and turned back to Rome, finally landed on the Isle of Thanet on the Kentish coast in 597. They were warmly welcomed by King Ethelbert of Kent and his Christian wife, Bertha. The monarch gave the monks permission to evangelize, and provided them with an old church, St Martin’s, in his city of Canterbury, as well as a place in which to live.
Augustine and his companions soon established the ordinary routine of the Benedictine Rule; and to it they seem to have added in a quiet way the apostolic ministry of preaching. The English embraced the new religion while still respecting the old, but under the wise orders of Gregory the Great, Augustine turned the ancient pagan traditions into Christian worship. He adapted pagan festivals into saints' feast days and consecrated pagan temples to use them as churches.
Before long Ethelbert and many of his courtiers and subjects were baptized and so began the evangelization of the English-speaking race. 
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