h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm amazed it could have been built that early (BTW, it is AD 9, _not_ 9 AD). When did Christianity come to Britain?

The common concensus seems to be that christ was born approx 6 BC. As one of the tenets of christian faith is that christ rose from the dead. As this didn't happen until his 30's, it means that there was no christianity anywhere until AD 25 or so.

Early british christians had a habit of building churches on "pagan" sites. This could be what happened here.

Or it could be just a typo.

I read somewhere that Christianity came to Britain sometime in the 700s.

I loved the article, but I agree that there is something wrong with this date. Perhaps it should have read "9th Century". The Danes held much of the area in question between 850 and 950, as far as I know, and this time frame makes more sense.
Having read this piece, I will be sure not to pass this area without a visit to the church. Thank you.
Nightowl

Oops!

Thanks guys - it's all been fixed now.

Happy New Year Y'all

A long dead conversation I can't help resurecting. Christianity came to Roman Britain in about 40AD. It has stayed there ever since. Pope Gregory the Great sent Augustine of Canterbury to England just before 600.

Essentially (depsite a lot of misinformation floating around), Augustine romanised the existing celtic church rather than converted it. Augustine's endless Easter Controversy meetings with the celtic bishops (described by the Venemous Bede) illustrate the point.



PS: Clement of Rome was never Pope however close he was to the movers and shakers in Christian Rome. Part of the problem is that it is not clear if Rome had a bishop in the Syrian (and modern) sense at that time. Never the less, he was a very good writer whose scribblings survived the extremely thorough persecutions and book burnings of the next two centuries and so he is very famous.