Saint Edward Brotherhood

Saint Edward Brotherhood was founded in 1982 to act as custodians of  the sacred relics of Saint Edward the Martyr, King of England which were enshrined at Brookwood, Surrey in 1984. The relics had been presumed lost during the Dissolution under Henry VIII, but were discovered by John Wilson-Claridge in 1931 who later donated them to the Orthodox Church.

Saint Edward was martyred in 978, and quickly became one of the most venerated saints of Anglo-Saxon England. At this time, England was still Orthodox in belief; in 1983, the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad (ROCA) decreed that Saint Edward should be added to the calendar of the saints and that his relics should be venerated.

In 2007, the ROCA Synod submitted to the Moscow Patriarchate despite the latter failing to renounce Sergianism (Russian State control of the Church) or ecumenism. The Fathers of  Saint Edward Brotherhood could not agree to this union, and are now members of the Church of Genuine Orthodox Christians under Archbishop Kallinikos of Athens.