Celebrate the feast of St. Augustine of Hippo and the namesake of the diocese at this year’s Augustinian Day Address on Friday, Aug. 27 at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine. Vespers begin at 6 p.m., followed by the address at 7 p.m.

 This year’s featured speaker is Andrew Dinan, Ph.D., an associate professor of classics at Ave Maria University and member of the Historical Commission where he is involved with the effort to obtain the beatification of the Martyrs of La Florida. His talk is titled “The Personalities of the Sixteenth-Century Florida Martyrs” and focuses on St. Augustine’s understanding of martyrdom, especially his emphasis on the humanity of the martyrs, using the original letters of the Florida martyrs to provide a glimpse of their personalities.

Andrew Dinan is an associate professor in the Department of Classics and Early Christian Literature at Ave Maria University, where he has taught since 2004. Since 2014, he has been involved with the effort to obtain the beatification of the Martyrs of La Florida, and in October 2015 he was sworn in as a member of the Historical Commission, which has been charged with evaluating the evidence for the various martyrdom events.