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Saint
Giles' Episcopal Church |
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St. Giles Episcopal Church
came into being November 9, 1950 when nine
Episcopalians met with Archdeacon Herbert Craig to plan the celebration
of Holy Communion on Thanksgiving and Christmas at the Jefferson Fire
Station. In January of 1951 the first Bishop's Committee was elected.
The Rev. Robert Frazier of Wiscasset was appointed Priest in Charge of
the new mission. St. Giles: The Man, His Meaning St. Giles is
also called Aegidius in many contemporary records. He was one of
the most popular medieval saints. Many crossroads throughout
Europe have churches named for him that served as hospices for
travelers, and very many cities had “St. Giles” churches (160 in
England alone), often just outside the walls where mendicants, lepers,
and homeless could be cared for without entering the populated
areas. Why was Giles the patron of these marginalized
persons? What was his special ministry? Who was the man,
where did he come from, what were his values and his pursuits?...
Very little “hard history” is actually known about this popular saint,
and our congregation has often presented fanciful dramatic readings at
our annual St. Giles’ Day (September 1st) Patronal Festival service to
answer some of these questions. The legend of the hermit Giles’
is well-known and says a great deal about the impact of his “alternate
lifestyle” on the violent and avaricious culture of the seventh-century
Frankish peoples, who had conquered what has come to be called Burgundy
and Provence.
While traditions vary, the gist of the story is that
Giles was the scion of a wealthy Athenian family and was either
pratictioner, or a descendent, of a strong tradition in the healing
arts, centered in that imperial metropolitan teaching and artistic
megapolis. However, fame and fortune galled him, and late
in the Eighth Century (perhaps) Giles reportedly dispersed his family’s
holdings among the needy of Athens and Pireaus and eschewed the
pressures of metropolitan life, fleeing across the Adriatic and
up into the (then) wilderness of the lower Rhone River Valley. It is
told that, hungry and without any means Giles’ stumbled into a
half-cave hidden among the shrubbery on the rugged, desert-like estuary
shores to live, initially as a fugitive but later as a renowned abbot.
Barely sustained perhaps by occasional bowls or scraps of food from charitable, hard-strapped local shepherds and fishers, Giles was held in life, tradition asserts, by the nursing of a doe who had lost her fawn at birth. The story continues that one day the local Frankish chieftain, Wamba was hunting the region , on horseback with a cohort of his erstwhile courtiers. Hot in pursuit of “a fleeing doe” one of the troop fired an arrow blindly into the copse where the deer had disappeared. The shot struck not the doe, but Giles himself, wounding his thigh severely. When the king and his party crashed in, breaking aside the branches, there in the golden Rhenish sunlight lay the unconscious hermit bleeding profusely. Calling for physicians to bind up the unfortunate “saint’s” wounds, Wamba was so mortified that he insisted, over Giles’ intense and irresolute objections, somehow to make compensation. He ordered his builders to construct monastery to house the now-famous, doe-nursed and divinely-guarded Athenian emigrant and establish him as prior over an order of friars, which in time became renowned for its concerns and skills in healing, especially the indolent, outcaste and leprous.  Within several
hundred years an architecturally avant-garde and
liturgically renowned church was built to supplement the
monastery and with it St. Gilles-du-Gard became a favorite
stopping-place on the southern pilgrimage route across to Santiago de
Compostela in Spain.
For a delightful, informative, and well-illustrated Virtual Tour of St. Gilles-du-Gard http://peregrinations.kenyon.edu/gilles_photoessay/StGilles-du-Gard.html  In time, this
order spread across the face of Europe and England,
bringing the healing powers of science and faith to the poor, indigent,
travelers, and underprivileged. He has been especially venerated
in England and Scotland. In A.D. 1117, Matilda, wife of Henry I,
founded a hospital for lepers outside London, which was dedicated to
St. Giles, and the parish church of Edinburgh existed under his
invocation as early as A.D. 1359.
The tradition in Christianity of “eremites,” or desert hermits, stems from a wildly popular movement in second-century Egypt; following the example of Moses, Elijah, Jesus and his cousin John, Paul, and many others, men (and later women) moved from the pressures and burdens of civic life out into the wilderness, gaining solitude, silence, and simplicity. Several hundred years before Giles came to the Rhone Valley, St. Benedict the Great had revamped this solitary monasticism and developed monastic communities. Throughout all the bellicose Germanic kingdoms of the early Middle Ages, these religious communities became unique centers of peacefulness, healing, culture, learning, refuge, and eventually considerable wealth and power. Giles, and those whom he meets in our dramatic readings, lived in an age of incomparable transition, blatant materialism, aggressive individualism, and disintegrating public morality. In light of our own contemporary millennial sensitivity, it is striking to see how Giles, his faith and his example, met the challenge of that turbulent time. Appendix
Biography as reported in Wikipediea On-Line Encyclopedia Life
Giles first lived in retreats near the mouth of the Rhône and by the River Gard, in today's southern France. (The story that he was the son of King Theodore and Queen Pelagia of Athens is probably an embellishment of his early hagiographers.) Finally he withdrew deep into the forest near Nîmes, where in the greatest solitude he spent many years, his sole companion being a deer, or hind, who in some stories sustains him on its milk. This last retreat was finally discovered by the king's hunters, who had pursued the hind to its place of refuge. An arrow shot at the deer wounded the saint instead, who afterwards became a patron of cripples. The king, who by legend was Wamba, an anachronistic Visigoth, but who must have been (at least in the original story) a Frank due to the period, conceived a high esteem for the hermit, whose humility rejected all honors save some disciples, and built him a monastery in his valley, which he placed under the Benedictine rule. Here Giles died in the early part of the 8th century, with the highest repute for sanctity and miracles. Legacy
Giles, pictured below with a hind, is one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers Around his tomb in the abbey sprang up the town of St-Gilles-du-Gard. His cult spread rapidly far and wide throughout Europe in the Middle Ages, as is witnessed by the numberless churches and monasteries dedicated to him in France, Spain, Germany, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and Great Britain; by the numerous manuscripts in prose and verse commemorating his virtues and miracles; and especially by the vast concourse of pilgrims who from all Europe flocked to his shrine.  In
1562 the relics of the saint were secretly transferred
to Toulouse to save them from the anger of the Huguenots and the level
of pilgrimages declined. With the restoration of a great part of the
relics to the church of St. Giles in 1862, and the publicized
rediscovery of his former tomb there in 1865, the pilgrimages
recommenced.
Besides the city of Saint-Gilles, nineteen other cities bear his name. Cities that possess relics of St. Giles include Saint-Gilles, Toulouse and a multitude of other French cities, Antwerp, Brugge and Tournai in Belgium, Cologne and Bamberg in Germany, Rome and Bologna in Italy, Prague and Gran. The lay Community of Sant'Egidio is named after his church in Rome. Giles is also the patron saint of Edinburgh, Scotland. In medieval art he is depicted with his symbol, the hind. His emblem is also an arrow, and he is the patron saint of cripples. Giles is one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, initially invoked as protection against the Black Death. His feast day is September 1. The fifth book in the Brother Cadfael murder mystery series by Ellis Peters is titled The Leper of Saint Giles.
A History of St. Giles: Man,
Legend, Saint
by George V. Van Deventer In memory of the Very Reverend Frederic R. Murray, September 15,1910 – March 2, 1996 Dean of the Cathedral of St. Paul in Erie, Pennsylvania From September 1955 – September 1975 Member of St. Giles’ Church, Jefferson, Maine My
curiosity about Saint Giles was sparked by a correspondence I have
enjoyed with the English historian, poet and Anglican Church reader,
Ronald Blythe. In a letter dated 20 February 1999 he referred to
Saint Giles: “We have an ancient St. Giles Church in
Colchester. He was a French hermit who became enormously
popular as a saint in the Middle Ages. I wonder who brought him
to you.” I thought this was a fair question and decided to find
the answer. Amateurs are such naive creatures and I am not the
exception.
After a short visit to the Diocesan Resource Center in Portland I was referred to the archives of the Episcopal Church in Austin, Texas. I received a thoughtful reply from Jennifer Peters, summarized with, “It is difficult to speculate as to when the use of his name first occurred in the United States, as he was ‘brought to the Americas’ with all of the other traditional saints of the Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches.” At that point I realized I had stepped into a hole larger than I could climb out of in the time I had for this project. The legend of St. Giles, also known as Aegidus, one of the best known of the Middle Ages, is derived from a biography written in the 10th century. He was a wealthy, noble Athenian by birth. During his youth he cured a sick beggar by giving him his own cloak, after the manner of St. Martin, a common tale attached to many saints. When his parents died, he used his fortune to help the poor. He dreaded temporal prosperity and the attention it represented. He left Athens and sailed west, landing at Marseilles and staying with Saint Caesarius at Arles. After two years he made his hermitage in a wood near the mouth of the Rhone. In his solitude he was nourished by a hind (the female of the red deer). One day the hind was pursued by hunters led by the Visigoth King Flavius Wamba. The deer eluded the hounds, and the hunters gave up the chase. This was repeated three days in a row. On the third day the king brought a bishop with him to watch the peculiar behavior of the hounds. This time one of the huntsmen shot an arrow at a thick, rustling bush which screened the cave where Giles lived. The huntsmen forced their way through the brush and found Giles wounded in the leg by the arrow, sitting with the hind between his knees. Flavius and the Bishop, upon seeing Giles, were so impressed with his story that they promised to send physicians to attend him. Giles asked to be left alone and refused all gifts pressed upon him. King Flavius became a frequent visitor to Giles, who eventually asked the king to devote his proffered alms, money given to the king by his subjects, to the founding of a monastery. The king agreed, provided Giles would become its first abbot. In due course the monastery was built near the cave at a place now called Saint-Gilles in Provence; this became an important stop on the pilgrimage routes both to Compostela and to the Holy Land. His care for the wounded, those crippled by disease, and lepers resulted in his becoming a saint. Leprosy sufferers were not permitted to enter towns and cities and therefore often congregated on the outskirts where churches built to meet their needs were regularly dedicated to Giles. When Giles visited Rome to commend his monks to the Holy See, legend says that the pope made him a present of two carved doors of cedar-wood. To emphasize his trust in divine providence, Giles threw the doors into the Tiber, and they safely preceded him to France. These and other medieval accounts of St. Giles, our sole sources of information, are historically questionable. The most that is known of St. Giles is that he may have been a hermit or monk near the mouth of the Rhone in the sixth or eighth century, and that his relics were claimed by the monastery that bore his name. Saint Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1460 was given an arm bone of Giles as a relic. The relic came from an Edinburgh church built and dedicated to Giles in the 12th century. England has 160 parishes named after Giles. In Spain, shepherds consider Giles the protector of rams. It was formerly the custom to wash the rams and color their wool a bright shade on Giles’ feast day, tie lighted candles to their horns, and bring the animals down the mountain paths to the chapels and churches to have them blessed. Among the Basques, the shepherds come down from the Pyrenees on September 1 attired in full costume, with sheepskin coats and carrying staves and crooks, to attend Mass with their best rams, an event that marks the beginning of autumn festivals. Giles is numbered among the Fourteen Holy Helpers (the only one of them who is not a martyr). The symbolic color for Giles is white, symbolizing saints who were not martyred. From Europe to the United States we are obliged to take a giant historical step. As mentioned, above, because of the lack of material to show when Giles was brought to this country as a patronal saint, we’ll look directly at how Giles became our patronal saint in Jefferson, Maine. In 1948 the Reverend Herbert Craig bought a farm in Jefferson. A small group of Episcopalians in the fall of 1950 approached Fr. Craig, now in charge of all rural missions for Maine, about worshipping together. On November 9, 1950, nine Episcopalians met with Archdeacon Craig in his home to plan arrangements to celebrate holy communion. Those present at the meeting were Mr. and Mrs. William Goldschmidt, Mr. and Mrs. Fred E. Jackson, Mr. and Mrs. William Knowles, Dr. Lester Gross, Mrs. Frederick Jackson, Mrs. Chester Hathaway and Mrs. William Fish. The first service was on Thanksgiving Day, November 23, 1950, at 9 a.m. at the Jefferson Fire House with 24 present. On June 3, 1951, with 34 present, the congregation began meeting at the Christian Endeavor Hall, which they rented from the First Baptist Church. An organizational meeting was held on January 10, 1951, with the Rev. Robert P. Frazier from St. Philip's, Wiscasset, who was appointed by the bishop to be the vicar of the new mission. The first bishop’s committee was elected as follows: William Goldschmidt, Lester Gross, Phyllis Rush, Helen Hathaway and Fred Earl Jackson. The first two lay readers appointed were Mr. Goldschmidt and Mr. William Johnson. One of the first tasks charged to the committee was to select a suitable saint’s name for the mission. Three names were considered and submitted to the attending congregation: St. Hubert, St. Hillary, and St. Giles. A vote was taken and Giles was the choice: the three names received one, three, and thirteen votes, respectively. St. Giles Mission was formally accepted into the Diocese of Maine at the May 1951 annual diocesan convention. According to an article by Laura M. Pierce in the Lincoln County News, October 22, 1953: “The name is significant for the saint, patron saint of cripples and lepers, is said to have built his missions outside the city walls for those who could not worship inside.” A generous gift of land from the Ernest Hunt family, September 1953, solved the problem of a location for the new parish. The first communion service was held in the undercroft of the unfinished building on December 13, 1953, officiated by the Rev. Frazier of St. Philip's, with 65 in attendance. Later in the day, at 3 p.m., a formal dedication of Saint Giles Church to the glory of God, with thanksgiving, was officiated by Right Reverend Oliver L. Loring, Bishop of Maine, with Archdeacon Craig, and Rev. Frazier assisting and 250 in attendance. Saint Giles Church, Jefferson, has had the good fortune of many faithful and dedicated members over the years, giving of themselves for the church and community. An especially meaningful piece of work was contributed by the Very Reverend Frederic R. Murray in the form of an escutcheon of St. Giles Episcopal Church, Jefferson, as depicted on a ceramic tile. Heraldry, with an emphasis on the ecclesiastical, was a hobby of Dean Murray's for many years. The shield designed for St. Giles is piece of church art beautifully done, attractive and historically symbolic of our parish and the Church universal. Saint Giles is the patron of, among others, beggars, blacksmiths, breast feeding mothers, cancer patients, disabled and handicapped people, epileptics, hermits, lepers, the mentally ill and insane, the poor, spur makers, rams and horses, and Edinburgh, Scotland. |
