Cuthbert was the most popular saint of the pre-Conquest Anglo- Saxon Church. He was born about 625. Bede, who wrote a life of Cuthbert, tells us that in his youth, while tending sheep one night and praying, “as was his custom,” he saw a stream of light break through the darkness, and in its midst, “a company of the heavenly host descended to the earth, and having received among them a spirit of surpassing brightness, returned without delay to their heavenly home.” Learning the next day that Aidan of Lindisfarne had died at that very time, Cuthbert “determined immediately to enter a monastery.”

Trained in the austere traditions of Celtic monasticism, Cuthbert was Prior of Melrose Abbey from 651 to 664, and then of Lindisfarne for twelve years. Bede says that he was accustomed to make visitations even to remote villages to preach to people who, “neglecting the sacrament of their creed, had recourse to idolatrous remedies; as ifby charms or amulets, or any other mysteries of the magical art, they were able to avert a stroke inflicted upon them by the Lord...”Bede says that Cuthbert “often remained a week, sometimes two or three, even a whole month, without returning home; but dwelling among the mountains, taught the poor people, both by words of his preaching, and also by his own holy conduct.”

Archbishop Theodore recognized Cuthbert’s greatness of character and made him Bishop of Hexham in 684, but Cuthbert continued to make his see at Lindisfarne. He returned two years later to his hermitage on the neighboring island of Farne, where he died on March 20th, 687.

Cuthbert accepted the decisions of the synod of Whitby in 663 that brought the usages of’ the English Church into line with Roman practice. He was thus a “healer of the breach” that threatened to divide the Church into Celtic and Roman factions.

At the time of the Viking invasions, the monks of Lindisfarne carefully protected his relics during their wanderings, until finally they brought them to Durham, where pilgrims come to visit his shrine to this day.