April 3rd. St. Richard of Chichester.

Richard de Wych was born in 1197 at Droitwich, near Worcester, and studied at the leading universities of Europe (Oxford, Bologna and Paris) before attracting the attention of our own diocesan patron, St. Edmund of Abingdon, Archbishop of Canterbury. He was to accompany Edmund to exile at Pontigny in France, where Edmund died, in 1240. Richard then studied for the priesthood and after ordination served at Charing in Kent and at Deal. In 1244 Richard was chosen as Bishop of Chichester, not without controversy; he could not take possession of the see until the following year. Richard was a model of the bishop's ministry, as confessor, preacher, visitor, administrator and man of charity. He was particularly concerned with encouraging the Crusades to the Holy Land, though as a spiritual pilgrimage more than a military expedition. He would have deplored the 'smash-and-grab-raid' air of some of the Crusades. He died at Dover on this day in 1253, was canonised in 1262 and enshrined in Chichester Cathedral in 1276. The shrine was destroyed at the Reformation.