Saint Alban - British Protomartyr

Orthodox icon of the Martyr St. Alban at his Martyrium. 

If you are the writer of this icon please do contact me and I will gladly credit you. 

Thank you for the wonderful image.

I have been reflecting a good deal recently on the life and death of Saint Alban, Britain's first martyr. The rising tide of anti-Christian sentiment in the West is making me wonder if a wave of physical persecution, such as Alban and many others endured in the pre-Constantinian Roman Empire, might be close at hand.

Alban was a respectable Romano-British gentleman, liked and admired by all sections of society, who lived in Verulamium (modern day St. Alban's) a few miles north-west of London. The date of his execution has not been precisely established but it seems likely that it took place sometime in the late third century. 

Alban, so the story goes, found a ragged, exhausted-looking old man lying half-unconscious in his porch one day. Alban took him in, bathed him, fed him, and looked after him for several days. The old man, whose name was Amphibalous, told him that he was a Christian priest fleeing the authorities, who had embarked on another of their periodic, no-holds-barred attempts to stamp out the faith. 

Alban was deeply wedded to Roman custom and belief and he was shocked at Amphibalous' testimony. He asked him why he had come to his house, and the old man replied that it was Alban's reputation for goodness and his renowned kindness to the poor and needy that had led him to his door. 

As the days passed and Amphibalous grew stronger, Alban began to question him more deeply about his Christian faith. He was greatly struck by the old man's love for his god - a love so deep and true that he was willing to die to stay loyal to Him. This tells us much about Amphibalous' closeness to Christ and the quality of holiness which clearly emanated from him. It also reveals Alban's serious-minded nature, the sincerity of his spiritual search, and the great capacity for faith which this encounter opened up in him. 

Alban was so impressed with his guest that he asked him to baptise him and make him a Christian. Then, when word arrived that the Romans had learned he was harbouring a priest, Alban took off his robe and gave it to Amphibalous, before bundling him out the back door and dressing himself in the old man's clothes. So when the soldiers came and saw a man in the garb of a Christian priest kneeling in prayer, their surprise when they pulled back the hood and found Alban looking back at them, was great indeed. 

He was taken to the magistrate, an old friend of Alban's father, who did everything he could to release him. He would gladly forgive this one-off folly, he said. All Alban needed to do was make the customary offering to the Roman gods and that would be that. But this was precisely what Alban could no longer countenance. He was a Christian now, he told the magistrate, and unable to honour any god but Jesus Christ. Those present begged him not to forfeit his life over a technicality, but Alban was adamant and the magistrate was left with no other option but to sentence him to death. 

So the soldiers marched him off to the place of execution. They shoved him into a river, forcing him to wade across, but when Alban lifted up the wooden cross he was carrying the waters dried up and he walked along the river bed on dry land. At the spot where he was to be beheaded he asked for a drink, and a spring of water gushed up spontaneously from the ground. When the executioner saw this he refused to take part in the murder of such a self-evidently holy man. So the Captain of the Guard took it on himself to kill both Alban and the executioner. Amphibalous too was hunted down a few days later and martyred in his turn. 

What I find particularly interesting about this story is that it was not all that long after Alban's martyrdom - a few decades at the most - that the Empire became Christian and persecution ceased. Christianity, during Alban's lifetime, was rigourously oppressed by the Roman State, yet it grew in strength and numbers all the time, eventually becoming the religion of the Emperor and his family.

Today in Britain, the situation is almost the opposite. Christianity is officially tolerated by the State. We are, in fact, still a nominally Christian country, yet the dominant trends in culture and society are dragging us away from our Christian heritage and from any sense of a shared, collective relationship with Christ. 

So will this spiritual amnesia, this 'refusal to inherit', as the late Sir Roger Scruton put it, inevitably segue into the future imprisonment and execution of Christians? All we can say with certainty at the moment, I think, is that when it comes to Christianity there is no such thing as a benevolent 'liberal neutrality' or a disinterested, impartial State. A genuinely Christian nation needs a governing class willing and able to act as a positive advocate for the Faith. That is far from the case today, and it does make one somewhat uneasy as to where the direction of travel might be taking us. 

What then does the life and death of St. Alban teach us about effective, meaningful witness in a fundamentally anti-Christian age? It shows us, in my view, how to keep our focus on the Lord; to acknowledge that, despite appearances, He is present and active in the world; to realise that He has plans and intentions which we cannot comprehend, and not to become angry, resentful or overly-dismayed at the wretched state of things. Easier said than done, I know. Nor, on the other hand, should we let ourselves be seduced by spurious, head-based schemes and strategies for Christian renewal - 'roadmaps for recovery', 'programmes for revival', and so forth. What we need to do is something much more radical and also very simple - to open up to the grace which pours down constantly upon us from beyond the confines of this chequered world. That way something real can start to act in us and make itself manifest in society. This, and this only, is what will attract, compel, and potentially change others. We will become transparent, as was Amphibalous, who had 'got himself out of the way', as they say, and become a conduit for the presence and sanctifying action of the living God. 

What Alban saw in Amphibalous and what the executioner saw in Alban was not actually a 'what' but a 'who' - namely Christ Himself. It is not his or her own individual light which the saint casts out into the world, but the light of Christ. 'Say your prayers and keep your will fixed in the will of Maleldil', as Ransom tells Dimble in That Hideous Strength. And this is what is demanded of us today - dedication, humility, focus and simplicity. This is the path of sanctity, the wooden cross we hold up, à la Alban, to the foaming torrent of liquid-modernity and our would-be oppressors. Anything else, anything less, however well-intentioned, is to collude with the Father of Lies, who seeks to blot out from our souls that Life which, to paraphrase St. John, is the 'light of men; the light that shineth in the darkness, though the darkness comprehendeth it not - the true light, which enlightens every man who cometh into the world.'