This page can be saved on bookmarking sites where you can store links you want to remember or share

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor preaching at an ecumenical service in St Alban's Abbey Church on the weekend said:

My dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
I am delighted to be with you today in this great Abbey to celebrate the 850th anniversary of the Election of Nicholas Breakspear as Pope Adrian IV. There have been few non-Italian Popes in history but this one Englishman, elected in 1154, was perhaps among the greatest of them. He was born in Abbots Langley here in Hertfordshire in the year 1100 of humble stock. His father, Robert Breakspear, had taken minor orders at the monastery here of St. Albans, where Nicholas received his education. He had further studies in Paris and then entered the house of the Canons Regular of Saint-Rufus at Avignon. He was professed, ordained priest and later became prior and finally succeeded as Abbot of that monastery. As sometimes happens in monasteries, the canons found the new Abbot's rule too strict and they appealed to the Pope of that time, not once, but twice. Eventually Pope Eugenius told the canons who were protesting to go home and elect another Abbot, but he wisely retained Nicholas Breakspear, creating him Cardinal Bishop of Albano near Rome.

Two years ago, Pope John Paul kindly invited me to go as Papal Legate to Sweden for the anniversary of the Cathedral there. To my surprise I found that the last Papal Legate to have gone to Sweden on behalf of the Pope was in fact Nicholas Breakspear, who went there in 1152. He did marvellous work, reconciling the differences between the Scandinavian Monarchs and achieved a lasting peace. When Nicholas returned to Rome in 1154 he was hailed there as Apostle of the North and the Cardinals elected him Pope by acclamation. He took the name Adrian IV.

It is not my purpose this evening to go into all the details of Pope Adrian's reign of five years. They were difficult times with many threats of war and instability. Given the challenges that faced him, it was impressive how well he governed the papal states and how far-reaching were his foreign policy initiatives. In the towns of the patrimony of the Holy See which was about half of Italy at the time, he was known as kindly and just, bestowing on all the people many benefits. Adrian IV was a fully Roman Pope, one who cared deeply about his responsibility for the papal states and his ordinary oversight of the universal Church. But he did not cease to be English, nor forget his roots. He liked to have Englishmen around him and appointed a number of them to high rank - and who can blame him for that? When he died in 1159 his sarcophagus bore the simple inscription, Hadranus Papa IV. An old friend, John of Salisbury, wrote about him: Amidst all the troubles ………… to this is added the death of our lord Adrian, which has disturbed all Christian nations and peoples but it has moved our England, from whom he sprung, with a deeper grief, and watered it with profuser tears. All good people wept for him but none more than I.

What lessons can we learn from the life of Nicholas Breakspear? First of all, it seems to me, we who are part of Europe, should remember what Europe was like in the 12th century and in particular what the Church was like at that time. If ever there was a century in which the association of England with the rest of Christendom in Europe, was total, it was during this century. One could not see the Church in England at that time separate from the international body of which it formed an integral part. The Archbishops of Canterbury, from William the Conqueror to Edward II were either foreigners or English born clerics with foreign experience, just as the religious orders of the time were linked closely to mother houses across the Channel. The great Cathedrals of Canterbury, Wells and York belonged to the same international spiritual company as Cologne, Chartres, Milan. Henry II's tussles with Thomas a Becket were a local emanation of a much wider conflict over secular ecclesiastical jurisdiction throughout Europe.

Throughout the 12th century, Europe was a place of remarkable fluidity, an age of pilgrims, crusaders, itinerant friars and wandering scholars. Students travelled from all over Europe to the French schools at Liege, Orleans, Montpellier and Paris. The ecclesiastical high-fliers trekked to Rome; pilgrims and crusaders travelled to the Holy Land or joined the Christian re-conquest of Spain.

Nicholas Breakspear exemplifies, perhaps, the best of that age because he travelled all over Europe and was at home wherever he went. He is, perhaps, the ultimate English European and someone we could look to in Britain as we debate now and on what terms Britain wishes to be part of the European Union. He was a loyal son of St. Albans whose career spanned Europe and he is no less English for being at home in Avignon and Rome. He was a Hertfordshire lad who became a French Abbot and later a papal ambassador and, ultimately, Pope of the universal Church. No wonder we have as our reading today from Genesis the Lord saying to Abraham, Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and the one who curses you I will curse and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. (Gen. 1-3)

It is a Europe, a different Europe, in which we now dwell. But it seems to me as we gather here today that we Christians in Europe, like Breakspear in the 12th Century, also have to face troubles, instability, and great forces of change. More and more should we seek, like Pope Adrian, in any way that is open to us to keep alive and promote the flame of faith in Jesus Christ in our time, in our Europe. It may be true that the Church is no longer as it was in the 12th century, as it were, the city on the hill, with everyone within its universal embrace. But it is surely the leaven in the mass of which our Lord speaks, the hidden seed which bears fruit through the lives and witness of Christians in this great Continent. Just as Nicholas Breakspear was not afraid to travel far from his father's house in his vocation as monk, and eventually Pope, so we should not be afraid to launch out into the deep, to find new paths and new ways of witnessing to Jesus Christ by word, by deed, in our own time and in our own place.

Perhaps also we can learn from the example of the one English Pope a crucial aspect of the papacy, namely, one of humble service to the unity of all Christians. In the gospel read today, we hear the Lord saying to Peter, Do you love me more than these? Peter said to Him, Yes, Lord, you know that I love you. And Jesus said to him, Feed my lambs. And he asked him a second time, and a third time, Simon, son of John, do you love me? Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, Do you love me? And he said to Him, Lord, you know everything, you know that I love you. Jesus said to him, Feed my sheep. At the very foundation of the establishment of the Office of Peter is the call to love and service. More and more, perhaps, as we strive to overcome our divisions, keep on the road of reconciliation, truth and unity, may we possibly see one day the Pope, as surely this present Pontiff indicates, as a Pope for all Christians - yes, in diversity, but also in unity. It may seem far away but, as the Prophet Joel says, Your old men shall dream dreams and your young men shall see visions. Why shouldn't we hope for one flock and one shepherd, knowing that the Shepherd is Jesus Christ Who draws us together in unity and peace.

But it seems to me that there is one other lesson we can learn from Nicholas Breakspear. When on 4th December 1154 Nicholas was elected Pope, he took, as we know, the name of Adrian IV. We are told that he took that name because he remembered that the first Pop