Feast Day of Saint Alban and
Saints Peter and Paul
Celebrating Our Patron Saints Calendar Highlights
Wednesday, June 22, 2011, marks the feast day of Saint Alban, a shadowy third-century Roman soldier in Great Britain who was decapitated for sheltering and professing the same faith as a persecuted Christian priest. Saint Alban’s parish and St. Albans School for Boys both commemorate this early British martyr, the patron saint of the “Mount St. Alban” on which the Cathedral stands. Exactly one week later, June 29 marks the double feast of the Cathedral’s own patron saints, Saint Peter and Saint Paul. The name comes courtesy of the Rev. George William Douglas of St. John’s, Lafayette Square, who helped to draft a constitution for the nascent “church for national purposes.”
Long-established tradition records that Simon Peter, one of the Apostles, was the first pope; his name, meaning “rock,” occasioned Jesus’ remark that that disciple would become “the rock” on which he would build his church (Matthew 16:18). Paul, originally named Saul, was a Roman citizen who persecuted Christians before a powerful conversion experience on the way to Damascus in which he both lost and regained his sight (Acts 9). His letters to early Christian communities are among the earliest-dated Scriptures in the New Testament.
Peter and Paul were by no means perfect individuals. In addition to his cruel past, Paul claimed to suffer from a “thorn in the flesh” (2 Corinthians 12:7–10); Peter makes himself known for impetuosity in the New Testament rather than rocklike stability (Matthew 17:4–6; 26:75). Both martyrs’ very accessible humanity makes them ideal patrons for a Cathedral that prides itself as a house of prayer for all people.
The name of the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul unites the memory of two powerful early fathers of Christianity who frequently have separate churches dedicated in their honor. In London, for instance, Westminster Abbey is dedicated to St. Peter (and St. Paul has a cathedral of his own)—which might be the origin of the phrase “robbing Peter to pay Paul,” as revenues to support one could be drained to support the other in years past.
Most powerfully, the unification of the two saints in Washington reflects the enduring ideal of reconciliation behind the National Cathedral, since the two were said to have disagreed in Antioch about the relevance of Mosaic law (Galatians 2:11–14). The ideal of unity—between these two great apostles and among all people—is reflected in the collect appointed for June 29:
Almighty God, whose blessed apostles Peter and Paul glorified you by their martyrdom: Grant that your Church, instructed by their teaching and example, and knit together in unity by your Spirit, may ever stand firm upon the one foundation, which is Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.