W. Robert Godfrey

And that's what happens as time goes on.

But for Gregory, preaching was still critical, was still central.

Another thing for which we can commend Gregory is his continuing commitment to Christian missions.

He was aware that there were still significant parts of northwestern Europe that were not yet evangelized, had not yet really heard the gospel and responded to the gospel.

And Gregory was one who, amongst others, really promoted a mission to England.

And I mention that because the man he sent to England was a man by the name of Augustine, who became Saint Augustine, but not to be confused with Saint Augustine of Hippo.

This is Saint Augustine of Kent.

And this Augustine went to England to do missionary work.

He arrived in Kent, and the capital of Kent in those days was a city called Canterbury.

and he became the Bishop of Canterbury, and that was the first major sea in connection with Rome in England, and that's why to this day the Archbishop of England is the Archbishop of Canterbury.

That is still the historic foundation of England's Christianity, and in some ways that goes all the way back to Pope Gregory, who saw the need to see

missionaries sent further and further north and west in Europe and encouraged that in dramatic ways.

Now, the need for missionaries was because parts of Europe were still pagan.

Parts of Europe were under heretical Christian leadership, particularly Aryan leadership.

Parts of Europe were continuing to see the influx of a variety of barbarians from different parts of the East, and that barbarian pressure meant there was constant pressure on the church to find ways of coming to terms with these newcomers.

First half of the Middle Ages, one of the newcomers from the East that caused a lot of trouble were the Mudjars.

The Hungarians, since my wife's a Hungarian, I always have to mention the Hungarians whenever they come up in history.

But they were constantly pressuring in the first half of the Middle Ages from the East and finally settled down after the conversion of their King Istvan, King Stephen.

who was converted to Christianity, became a saint.

So there's this constant pressure of sustaining the faith and spreading the faith in the early Middle Ages, and one element of that pressure came particularly from the rise of Islam.