St Birinus Church Dorchester on Thames

St Birinus came to Dorchester, near Oxford, in 635AD, sent by Pope Honorius to convert the Saxon English to the Catholic faith. His legacy and mission continues from the Church built next to the river Thame, at the place where Birinus baptized Cynegils, King of the Southern English kingdom of Wessex at that time.

Dorchester was a ruined Roman town, feared by the Saxons as a place of evil spirits. However, Cynegils gave it to Birinus, who immediately built a church over the Roman temple together with various monastic buildings for the brethren accompanying him. 

They began the daily work of praying the Divine Office according to the Catholic tradition in the Latin form which is largely unaltered to this day.

St Birinus Church was established in 1852 to resume Catholic worship following a 300 year period of suppression of the Catholic Faith in England. Today, the church celebrates the Catholic Mass in the modern form and the traditional, ancient form as known to St Birinus himself.