Synod of Whitby

Synod of Whitby, ecclesiastical council held in 664 in Whitby, Yorkshire, England. The synod was called by King Oswy of Northumbria to decide questions of church policy and especially to settle the method of determining the date for the observance of Easter. Religious controversy had arisen because of differences between the Celtic and Roman churches. Missionaries sent from Rome beginning with Augustine and his companions in 597 had introduced Christianity to the Anglo-Saxons in the south of England. In northern England, missionaries from Scotland, including Saint Aidan, who founded the monastery of Holy Island in Northumbria in 635, had won many converts to the Celtic church. At Whitby, King Oswy decided to follow Roman rather than Celtic usage, a decision of considerable importance in giving England a common religion and unifying it with the greater part of Western Christendom.