St.Alban

Stained glass window in St.Mary, Sledmere, Yorkshire

Alban is regarded as the first British Christian martyr, having been decapitated on a hill above the Roman town of Verulamium, now known as St.Albans, a town to the north of London. St.Albans Cathedral was built near the site. The date of his execution is debated, with the date 283 being recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles. A twentieth-century historian has suggested an earlier date of 209.

In 1977 Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi went with some of her early followers to stay at a yogi’s house in the town of St.Albans. They went to see St.Albans Cathedral and visited Saint Alban’s grave where Shri Mataji “knelt to pay Her respects to Saint Alban who She said was an Adi Guru.” Another yogi present that day reported that Shri Mataji described Saint Alban as “a part incarnation of the Adi Guru.”


Bibliography
Julia Crick, ed., Charters of St.Albans (Oxford: Oxford University Press for British Academy, 2007)
Djamel Metouri and Pat Anslow, ‘Saint Albans’ in Eternally Inspiring Recollections of our Divine Mother, edited by Linda J.Williams (London: Blossomtime Publishing, 2nd ed., 2013), vol.1:92-93
Phillip Thornhill, ‘St.Alban and the end of Roman Britain’ Mankind Quarterly 41(1), 2000; Part 2: 41(2), 2000; Part 3: 41(3), 2001

[entry from John Noyce, Saints, Sufis and Yogis. 3rd ed. Vol.1. A-H]


Photo: Dave Webster (Wikipedia)