Orthodox Monastery of All Celtic Saints, Kilninian, United Kingdom

Historical Details

Build - Founding Year:

2010

History:

The Monastery of All Celtic Saints is the first Orthodox Monastery in the Isles of Scotland in over a thousand years. We are an English speaking, multi-national community living on the Islands of Mull and Iona, united by our faith and our love for Christ and His Saints. We strive to support the Orthodox in the West and to pray for the world. The Monastery was founded in 2010, when Fr Seraphim took over Kilninian, the Church of St Ninian and St Cuthbert, on the Isle of Mull in the Hebrides. The Church had been deconsecrated and was not in use. Monastic history at Kilninian begins much earlier, towards the end of the sixth century. The first monastics settled here because of St Ninian’s Holy Well, a spring dedicated to St Ninian and known to have miraculous healing powers. The Celtic Monastery of St Ninian flourished from late 500s until the end of the first millennium, when the Viking attacks put an end to monastic life in the Isles. After that time, Kilninian was abandoned for a few centuries, before being turned into a protestant parish. In 1755, a new church was built over the foundations of the earlier monastic one, and this is the church we use for our services today. Since 2010, the Monastery has slowly grown, despite constant temptation. One of our most difficult moments was in November 2013, when the trees in the graveyard were broken by a storm and they fell over the church. An entire section of the roof and the bell tower were destroyed, leaving Kilninian exposed to the harsh rains and winds of the Atlantic. It took us over two years and over two hundred thousand pounds to repair this historical monument, which is listed as part of the national heritage. Today, the monastic community consists of two different Monasteries – the Monastery on Mull (where our sisters live) and the Monastery on Iona (where our brothers live). We are a multi-national community – our brothers and sisters come from Canada, the United Kingdom, Romania and the United States of America. Our daily and liturgical language is English. We function under the jurisdiction of His Eminence Joseph, Metropolitan of Southern and Western Europe, Orthodox Patriarchate of Romania.