CONVERSION // AD 722

 

He had no qualms chopping the tree down himself; monks in his tradition had after all been chopping trees for decades. The labor of bearing the axe against the trunk, of chipping away piece by piece, coupling each swing with prayer- body and spirit working in concert. It had been a daily ritual for the Irish monastics as they raised monasteries out of raw forest. Now in central Germany among pagan onlookers, St Boniface would carry out that same practice but for a different cause. The sacred oak belonged to Thunor, the Saxon god of weather whose single hammer strike would cause the very heavens to fill with a thunderous roar and whose patrons would bring their annual offering- often a child. Boniface, wielding an axe opposed to a hammer, would fell the tree interrupting the ceremony. That he was not struck dead by the wrath of their god was testimony enough to the Germans that Christ was King- that the Germans themselves did not kill the man was testimony again. The message to the people was clear: Christ triumphed over Thunor. With the timbers of the oak, Boniface built a church.

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So began the mission of St Boniface, the spark that swept through the Germanic tribes like holy fire. The effort was taken up by many after him with much the same fervor. Monks penning booklets of scriptures, creeds and prayers to be recited daily; Christian kings ending century long feuds by sword and decree; bishops re-ordering worship and educating the rural masses to read holy texts- conversion came as quickly as Boniface's axe did upon the idolator's totem. For the first time, the various tribes would be drawn together under one banner, the multitude of religions would be loosed and all faith tethered to the cross- the land of long standing division would find unity in Christ.

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St Boniface would himself suffer the same fate as the oak of Thunor, falling victim to the violence of Frisian pirates, yet against them he would not raise a sword. Judgement indeed belonged to the Lord. Christ was King and the saint believed it. Whether it was his to bear up the axe for Christ or to lay down his own life, this fact remained- Christ was King.