History of Christianity in Scotland

History Of Christianity In Scotland

Christianity was probably introduced to what is now southern Scotland during the Roman occupation of Britain. While the Picts and Scots away from Roman influence would have remained pagan, most scholars presume that Christianity would have survived after the departure of the Romans among the Brythonic enclaves such as Strathclyde, but retreated as the pagan Anglo-Saxons advanced into what is now the Lowlands of Scotland.

In the sixth century missionaries from Ireland were operating on the British mainland. This movement is traditionally associated with the figures of St Ninian, St Kentigern and St Columba. Ninian is now regarded as largely a construct of the Northumbrian church, after the Bernician takeover of Whithorn and conquest of southern Galloway. The name itself is a scribal corruption of Uinniau ('n's and 'u's look almost identical in early insular calligraphy), a saint of probable British extraction who is also known by the Gaelic equivalent of his name, Finnian. Little is known of St Kentigern (died 614), who probably worked in the Strathclyde region. St Columba was probably a disciple of Uinniau. He left Ireland and founded the monastery at Iona off the West Coast of Scotland in 563 and from there carried out missions to the Scots of Dál Riata, who are traditionally seen as having colonised the West of modern Scotland from what is now Ireland, and the Picts, thought to be the descendants of the Caledonians that existed beyond the control of the Roman Empire in the North and East. However, it seems likely that both the Scots and Picts had already begun to convert to Christianity before this.