DINOOTH AND AUGUSTINE
In 597 AD Augustine and his delegation of monks landed in Kent under direct order from Pope Gregory I to evangelize the pagan Saxons and this he succeeded in doing. Once he had managed to subdue Kent he prevailed upon the Saxon Ethelbert, King of Kent to summon all the prominent religious leaders and teachers from various parts of the British Isles to a place known as Augustine’s Oak, on the banks of the river Severn, for a meeting. The purpose of this meeting was to garner the allegiance of each of these branches of the Celtic church to the Pope at Rome. The delegation mainly consisted of scholars from the training school at Bangor and Dinooth, as head of the school, was among them. During this encounter Augustine made a stirring oration about the importance of unity, subtly accusing the Celtic churches of spreading disunity by teaching doctrines contrary to the Roman church and calling for Ecumenism in the form of the submission of the Celtic church to the authority of the Pope. He then set before them their need to evangelize the pagan Saxons among them as a united force.
To Dinooth and the other Celtic pastors the implication of such a request was clear; should they acquiesce they would lose their distinct identity and as a follow-on of that loss would forfeit the clear direction of their mission. Dinooth politely declined, stating that while they were happy to listen to what the Pope had to say, as they would be to any other brother in Christ, they would not place themselves under obligation to submit to him in any way. A second meeting was called for but the response of the Celtic pastors remained the same; they would not yield.
