What is Birinus?
[[File:Stained glass roundel in Dorchester Abbey, Oxfordshire, depicting Birinus and Asterius.jpg|thumb|right|300px|{{Center|Birinus being made a bishop by Archbishop Asterius.}}]] '''Birinus''' (died 650), also '''St. Birinus''' was a [[missionary]] to [[Wessex]] and the first Bishop of [[Dorchester]]. His [[feast day]] is celebrated on December 3rd. == Career == Birinus may have been a [[Lombardy|Lombard]] by birth.<ref name=Farmer52>David Farmer, ''The Oxford Dictionary of Saints'', Fifth Edition Revised (Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 52</ref> He was sent by [[Pope Honorius I]] to help convert [[pagans]] in [[Anglo-Saxons|Anglo-Saxon]] [[England]].<ref name=Bede153>Bede, ''Ecclesiastical History of the English People'', trans. Leo Sherley Price, revsd. R. E. Latham (London; New York: Penguin, 1990), p. 153</ref> The [[pope]] first sent him to [[Genoa]]. There Archbishop Asterius of [[Milan]] [[Consecration|consecrated]] Birinus as a [[bishop]].<ref name=Farmer52/> Birinus arrived in southern Britain {{circa|634}}.<ref name=Counsell100>Michael Counsell, ''Every Pilgrim's Guide to England's Holy Places'' (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2003), p. 100</ref> He had planned to go to the midlands of England to preach there. But when he found the [[Gewisse]] in Wessex were completely pagan, he decided to stay with them.<ref name=Farmer52/> He began to convert the Gewisse ([[West Saxons]]) to [[Christianity]]. In 635 King [[Cynegils of Wessex]] was [[baptized]] by Birinus and King [[Oswald of Northumbria]] agreed to be his [[Godfather]].<ref name=Thorpe22>Benjamin Thorpe, ''The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle according to the Several Original Authorities: Translation'' (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1861), p. 22</ref> This may have been a condition of the marriage between Oswald and Cynegils's daughter, Cyneburh.<ref name=Ashley304>Mike Ashley, ''The Mammoth Book of British Kings and Queens'' (New york: Carroll & Graf, 1999), p. 304</ref> He gave Bishop Birinus the city of Dorchester and several churches