Saint Boniface ( c 680 -754) Feast day 5th June

Saint Boniface was a Benedictine monk who was born in Crediton in Devon.
His original name was Wynfrid or Wynfrith. Pope Gregory 11 renamed him Boniface - doer of good.
Boniface studied at the abbeys of Exeter and Newell and became a monk. He was ordained a priest a priest at about the age of 30.

He tried three times to evangelise in Frisia/ Friesland
( now in the Netherlands ). The first two attempts -716 and 722 failed, the third, when he was aged 75, cost him his life.

In 718 he went to Rome. Gregory11 entrusted him with a mission to the pagans east of the Rhine…
722 he went to Hesse where he established the first of many Brendictine monasteries. His success was so great Gregory11 consecrated him a missionary
bishop

725-735 he was active in Thuringia converting pagans and renewing the faith of Christians.
Pope Gregory 111 ordered him to organize the church in Bavaria.

In 751 Boniface became archbishop of Mainz.

In 754, as a monk, he returned to Friesland. As he confirmed some converts he, along with 52 others, was martyred by a band of pagan Frisians.

Consuelo Maria Aherne, in the Britannica notes I have included, concludes Saint Boniface was an organizer, educator and reformer and that he influenced the course of intellectual, political and ecclesiastical history in Germany and France throughout the Middle Ages.

Saint Boniface was indeed a* doer of good.*

In 2019 Devon County council officially recognised Saint Boniface as the Patron Saint of Devon.

Sources used Britannica, wikipedia,
The Church’s Year by Charles Alexander and
*The Encyclopedia of Saints by Howard Loxton.