Celtic Christianity Gains Popularity

Success for an Ancient British Version of the Faith

Oct 7, 2009

A branch of Christianity formed on the so-called Celtic fringes of Britain shortly after the Romans left and before the country was "officially" converted is flourishing.

Thirty years ago literature on so-called Celtic Christianity was hard to find, but the publication of a flurry of books and the foundation of new Celtic-inspired international organisations, together with new Celtic-themed music and liturgies, means it is now an increasingly popular form of Christianity. There is even a Master of Arts degree course at the University of Wales in Celtic Christianity.

Celtic Christianity is a broad name covering original and modern interpretations of the early Christianity that originated in Western Britain and Ireland from the faith’s earliest years in Britain until well into the Anglo-Saxon period when it began to be pushed to the sidelines.

Making firm dates is impossible as “Celtic” Christianity is a relatively modern label; there was no official “Celtic” church with records and the mainstream churches thought little of it for centuries.

The First Christianity in Britain

Christianity first came to Britain during the Roman occupation, although historians are undecided about exactly how it arrived or when. After the Romans withdrew in about 410 Britain was effectively independent for about 200 years during which time Celtic spirituality developed along its own lines almost completely independently of events and developments on mainland Europe.

So as the official Rome-based church became more powerful, bureaucratic, hierarchical and involved in the political and military power-plays of early medieval Europe, the Celtic church managed to survive in remote areas in the north and west and kept itself relatively free from politics.

Celtic Christianity was a more mystical, poetic and nature-based religious outlook and allowed women in its leadership as equals. The Celtic way of prayer and worship was based in remote, agricultural communities and the great Celtic monasteries tended to be in remote areas or islands, like Iona and Lindisfarne.

Its driving forces were in hermitages, primitive monasteries away from inhabited areas, peripatetic priests, simplicity and a complete lack of the theatrical formality of the Roman Christian practices which later came to dominate the whole Christian church in the west.

The Celtic Saints

Among the leading personalities involved in this form of Christianity were St Patrick, who evangelised Ireland, St Aidan, who founded Lindisfarne, St Cuthbert, St Hilda, Iona’s founder St Columba, St Petroc and St Cedd. They and a host of other Celtic saints took the faith around Britain both before and during the Saxon occupation and are still remembered in church dedications and place names.

A Rival Church

The pagan Anglo-Saxons, later called the English, visited Britain from the mainland in small groups while the Romans were still in Britain but after the legions left came in increasingly large numbers to settle towards the end of the 200 year period of the so-called Dark Ages. In 597 they were converted to Christianity by St Augustine, the first Archbishop of Canterbury.

That set up two churches in Britain, the Celtic church in the remoter north and west and the newer Roman (Roman Catholic) church in the increasingly sophisticated and europeanised south east. They eventually clashed over the way the date for Easter was calculated and in 664 a meeting at Whitby Abbey on the Yorkshire coast saw the Roman way triumph, after which Celtic Christianity returned to its remote homes and fell from the mainstream of British Christianity. There were pockets of resistance but eventually all churches conformed to the Roman way and were to remain unchanged in basic doctrine until the rise of Protestantism in the 16th century.

Celtic Christianity remained on the sidelines, however, with its environmentally and ecologically-based prayers and liturgies often regarded as pagan.

Celtic Christianity Revived

But in the 19th and 20th centuries, alongside campaigns by musicians to resurrect old English, Welsh, Scottish, Irish and Cornish folk songs and folk talks, the oral traditions of Celtic Christianity were written down and its teachings revived. Books like Alexander Carmichael’s Carmina Gaedelica published the Celtic-inspired songs, prayers and sayings.

A revival of interest in Celtic literature in general helped bring Celtic Christianity back into the light and it was one of the factors that inspired George MacLeod to found the new Iona community off the Isle of Mull in Scotland. Other communities, including the Community of Aidan and Hilda and the Northumbria Community, have since been set up.

Thirty or so years ago it was difficult in Britain, or anywhere else, to pick up books specifically on Celtic Christianity although translations of the short and partly fabulous biographies of its saints and early leaders were fairly easy to find. There was also Bede’s monumental Ecclesiastical History of Britain, but that was seen mainly for its stories of the Saxon church.

Now, most religious bookshops and music shops have a dedicated Celtic section and most media covering that features the two great early Celtic monasteries of Lindisfarne and Iona mention Celtic Christianity as a specific branch of the faith.

Postgraduate prospectus, website and course details for Celtic Christianity MA from the University of Wales at Lampeter

The websites of the Community of Aidan and Hilda, the Northumbria Community and the Othona Community

The copyright of the article Celtic Christianity Gains Popularity in W European History is owned by John Reynolds. Permission to republish Celtic Christianity Gains Popularity in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.