Missionary of the Netherlands

Willibrord was born around 658 in the English region of Northumbria. His education began at the monastery of Ripon, where he received a solid religious formation. At the age of twenty, he decided to deepen his theological studies in Ireland under the guidance of an abbot named Egbert. Around the age of thirty, he was ordained a priest and, together with a group of eleven companions, set out for the continent to spread Christianity in the still pagan lands of Frisia and northern Germany.