Iona

It is more than 25 years now since Cynthia and I made a one day pilgrimage to Iona from our silver wedding base in Oban.

Today is the feast day of St Columba who founded the monastic missionary community there and who is buried in the abbey church.

Columba did not come to these shores out of choice. As a matter of fact he ended up here due to one of the first copyright disputes ever.

Columba was a monk at the monastery of Moville in Ireland. The Abbot there was named Finnian and he had been to Rome and returned with a copy of the four Gospels. At that time religious manuscripts were very rare because they were all written by hand.

Columba asked Finnian if he could make a copy of the manuscript but Finnian refused. Columba, however, was a prince of the O’Neills and thus was a proud and independent minded man so, undeterred by Finnian’s warning, he got up in the middle of the night and copied a small piece of the manuscript. He repeated this act every night, copying a small piece of the manuscript each time. On the last night Finnian walked in on Columba and flew into a rage. He demanded the copy from Columba who refused and retreated to the country of his tribe.

Finnian appealed to the High King of Ireland who summoned both to appear before him on a set date for the judgement. When they appeared the King’s judgement was "To the cow her calf." Finnian had won but Columba was not to be deterred.

Once again he ran home to his tribe and raised an army and marched south. The High King, angry that his judgement had been defied, raised his army and marched north. There was a huge battle. Columba won but 2000 men were killed and he was seized with remorse. He went to see his Father Confessor who told him that he must leave Ireland and win as many souls for Christ as had been lost at the battle. This was a terrible sentence known as white martyrdom.
Columba took some men with him and sailed for Scotland. He reached the island now off Southend on the Mull of Kintyre but he found that when he climbed to the top of the hill he could still see Ireland. As a result he sailed on to Iona and formed the monastery that is now so famous.

This was the year 563 and Columba, blessed with powerful oratory skill, succeeded in reviving Christianity in the Scots and even managed to penetrate into Pictland. It is thought that this was more of a diplomatic visit than a missionary one.

Columba made return visits to Ireland. At one such visit he attended a summit of all the kings of Ireland and managed to persuade them to exempt women from military duties.

By his death in 597 Columba had succeeded in making Iona the centre of a church that was increasing in size very quickly. It is interesting to note that this church was not episcopal in organisation even though it recognised the Pope as head of the church on earth. He had also managed to strengthen the position of Dal Riata in relation to her neighbour Pictland because of the now cordial relations between Dal Riata and Ireland.

The Iona Community was founded in Glasgow and Iona in 1938 by George MacLeod, minister, visionary and prophetic witness for peace, in the context of the poverty and despair of the Depression. From a dockland parish in Govan, Glasgow, he took unemployed skilled craftsmen and young trainee clergy to Iona to rebuild both the monastic quarters of the mediaeval abbey and the common life by working and living together, sharing skills and effort as well as joys and achievement. That original task became a sign of hopeful rebuilding of community in Scotland and beyond. The experience shaped – and continues to shape – the practice and principles of the Iona Community.

Iona is a tiny and beautiful Hebridean island off the west coast of Scotland, cradle of Christianity in Scotland, where in 563AD the Irish monk Columba (Columkille) established a monastic settlement that evangelised large parts of Scotland and the north of England and became an important centre of European Christianity. In the Middle Ages it became the site of a Benedictine abbey, and over the centuries it has attracted many thousands of people on their own pilgrim journeys.

Iona remains a centre for pilgrimage and tourism; the daily services of the Iona Community in the Abbey church and worship elsewhere on the island are open to all; many visitors come again and again. There is a year-round population of over 100; long-established island families as well as more recent arrivals, including those who work for the Iona Community in its centres as staff or volunteers. The abbey is now managed by Historic Scotland; the Iona Community remains in residence as a living, worshipping presence. The islanders, the Iona Community and Historic Scotland work together to maintain Iona as a place of welcome.