ON SAINT BONIFACE KIRITINUS, BISHOP IN SCOTLAND.
SEVENTH CENTURY
Historical Synopsis.
Boniface Kirikinus, Bishop in Scotland (S.)
BHL Number: 1396
[1] Among the apostolic men who in the seventh century of Christ illuminated northern Scotland, then the region of the Picts, with the sacred teaching of Christ and with various exercises of virtue and miracles, is Saint Boniface the Bishop, surnamed Queritinus, called by others Albanus Kiritinus, surnamed Boniface: Acts of this saint in MSS. whose Acts we obtained from a manuscript codex of Utrecht, but intermixed with some fables: whose beginning is: Albanus Kiritinus, surnamed Boniface, an Israelite by nation, of the lineage of Radia, the sister of the Apostles Peter and Andrew, the seventh, etc. The same Acts, but somewhat altered, by the author Adam King, were inserted into the Breviary of the Church of Aberdeen; and the Breviary of Aberdeen: divided into Lessons and recited at Matins for the sixteenth of March, on which day he is inscribed in the Cologne Martyrology printed in the year 1490 and the Doctrinale of the Clergy also published at Lubeck in the same year, in the German Martyrology of Canisius, record in the Martyrologies: and in the General Catalogue of Ferrarius in these words: In Scotland, of Saint Boniface, Bishop and Confessor. Hermann Grevenus, Carthusian of Cologne, in his Supplement to Usuard, proposes as it were three distinct Saints in these words: In Scotland, of Boniface the Bishop, of Albanus the Bishop and Confessor, of Saint Kinitimus, who above in the Utrecht Acts is called Kiritinus, by others Queretinus: concerning whom in a certain manuscript Martyrology of Utrecht, written two hundred or perhaps three hundred years ago, the following is found: Of Niritinus the Confessor with his companions, whose wonderful deeds are read. Whytford in his Martyrology printed in English in the year 1526 thus begins his encomium: In Scotland, the birthday of Saint Abban, also called Saint Kyryn, whose surname was Boniface, and he is especially called Boniface, and then many things are inserted from the Acts indicated above. In the manuscript Florarium of the Saints these things are expressed differently: At Efford, of Saint Boniface, Bishop and Confessor. And with other things interposed: Likewise of the holy Bishops and Confessors Gumbert and Kirithimus, of whom the last, called by others Kiritinus or Quiritinus, is Saint Boniface himself, also called Albanus, encomium from the Scottish Menologies: because he lived in Albania, the region of the Picts.
[2] David Camerarius in the Scottish Menologion adorns him with this encomium: Saint Boniface, Bishop of Ross, whose candor of soul, integrity of life, and love for the salvation of others, caused him to betake himself from Italy to Scotland: that the Scottish Church might conform itself in all things to the Roman Church, even in external rites: for which reason, having traversed various places of that kingdom, he chose for himself the province of Ross, in whose principal city, Ross-Markie by name, he exercised the duties of a Bishop for many years, not without the praise of holiness and the glory of miracles, and having happily run through these, he piously yielded to necessity about the year of Christ 630. Thomas Dempster in the Scottish Menologion has the following: In Mearns at Rosmarken, the birthday of Boniface, Bishop of Ross, who having laid down the supreme pontificate, traversed all Scotland in pious labor, preaching and celebrating the sacred mysteries. The same Dempster in his Ecclesiastical History of the Scottish Nation, chapter 131, compiled various things about Saint Boniface Queritinus, judging him to have been rather an Apostolic Legate than a Supreme Pontiff; following Hector Boethius, who in book 3 of his History of the Scots writes that he was sent as a Legate by the Roman Pontiff, and on that account was believed by the rude people to be the Pope. We add the remainder of Hector's encomium, purged of most of the fables, and it is as follows.
[3] Summary of the Life from Hector Boethius, Boniface Queritinus, a venerable Bishop, coming from Italy with a company of pious men, carried by ship into the estuary of the Tay, at the mouth of a small river which
now separates the region of Gowrie from Angus, first landed on shore... A man of outstanding piety and excellently learned in sacred letters, he has been transmitted to our age by many proofs. For in the place where he landed, he laid from the foundations a church to be consecrated to Saint Peter, Apostle of Christ. Setting out from there preaching, he came to the village of Tealing, three miles from Alyth, and founded a second church dedicated to the name of the same Apostle: a third at Restenneth, now a monastery of Canons of Saint Augustine. Having stayed there some years, after he had confirmed the people flocking to him with wholesome teaching in very frequent sermons; he penetrated the rest of Angus, Mearns, Mar, Buchan, Bogie-Vale, and Moray, instructing the peoples with the doctrine of Christ: having founded and consecrated not a few churches in various places of those regions in honor of Peter the Apostle. At length indeed he came also to Ross, where, staying until the end of his life, having expended many and pious labors for the worship of true piety, distinguished for holiness and erudition, according to Leslie, Bishop of Ross, rendering his happy soul to God, he left his body to be buried at Rosmarkie. John Leslie, Bishop of Ross, in book 4 of his account of the deeds of the Scots under Eugene IV, King 51, has the following: Under Eugene, the most holy Bishop Boniface came to Scotland: by whose labor, when all the darkness of superstition and Pelagian error had been dispelled, the people had been illuminated by the light of Christ, and various temples had been fixed and established to various Saints; he was buried at the village of Rosmarkie in the territory of Ross. and the manuscript Acts. He then asserts that King Eugene died in the year of Christ 620.
[4] To these we add a few things selected from the manuscript Acts of Utrecht, in which he is called Kiritinus, and they are as follows: Then by the will of God, Nectavius King of the Picts, being inspired, was baptized, and gave the place of baptism to Saint Kiritinus with all his parish, for the service of the pilgrims and servants of Christ, without any other subjection, forever. The King, having received a blessing, returned to his court. But Saint Kiritinus, carrying with him many relics of the Apostles and Martyrs and other Saints, founded a church at the mouth of the river Gobriat in Pictavia, and consecrated it. He evangelized the Picts and Scots for sixty years, and built a splendid temple at Rosmarkie. This holy man of the Lord, Kiritinus, performed apostolic miracles: he gave sight to the blind, cleansed lepers, made the deaf hear and the mute speak, drove out demons: he raised seven dead persons, redeemed many captives: he built a hundred and fifty churches, and converted thirty-six thousand people to the faith of Christ. At length, having completed eighty years, three months, and seventeen days of his age, on the seventeenth day before the Kalends of April, he departed to the Lord, and was buried in the same city in the church of Saint Peter before the altar, where he shines forth with daily signs and miracles. So far the text, which is found in nearly the same form in the Breviary of Aberdeen. Moreover, the places indicated above, from the adjacent provinces situated in northern Scotland, can easily be identified.