Lucius of Britain

The story became widespread after it was repeated in the 8th century by Bede, who added the detail that after Eleutherius granted Lucius' request, the Britons followed their king in conversion and maintained the Christian faith until the Diocletianic Persecution of 303.

He was in the time......[3] Because there is no other contemporary evidence for a British King Lucius, either in the writings of antiquity or in subsequently discovered artefacts (e.g. coins or inscriptions), academics question if he really existed.

In 1868 Arthur West Haddan and William Stubbs suggested that it might have been pious fiction invented to support the efforts of missionaries in Britain in the time of Saint Patrick and Palladius.

Von Harnack then suggested that a scribe had used Agbar's middle name of Lucius, and had mistakenly described him as King of 'Britanio' (e.g. Britain) instead of 'Britio', a citadel of Edessa, present day Şanlıurfa in Turkey.

Eleutherius sends two missionaries, Fuganus and Duvianus, who baptise the king and establish a successful Christian order throughout Britain.

Interestingly, the church altar is sited directly above the potential location of a pagan shrine room, of the great Roman London basilica.

[18] The "table" (tablet) seen by Stow was destroyed when the medieval church was burnt in the Great Fire of London,[19] but before this time a number of writers had recorded what it said.

The text of the original tablet as printed by John Weever in 1631 began: Be hit known to al men, that the yeerys of our Lord God an clxxix [AD 179].

Lucius the fyrst christen kyng of this lond, then callyd Brytayne, fowndyd the fyrst chyrch in London, that is to sey, the Chyrch of Sent Peter apon Cornhyl, and he fowndyd ther an Archbishoppys See, and made that Chirch the Metropolitant, and cheef Chirch of this kingdom...[20]A replacement, in the form of an inscribed brass plate, was set up after the Great Fire[19] and still hangs in the church vestry.

The text of the brass plate has been printed several times, for example by George Godwin in 1839,[21] and an engraving of it was included in Robert Wilkinson's Londina Illustrata (1819–25).