Early Western Light

ccording to the U.S. Census Bureau, 34.5 million Americans claim Irish ancestry. That is almost ten times the population of Ireland. But how many of these Irish-Americans know anything at all about the spiritual history of their ancestral land? How many can name a single Irish saint besides St. Patrick? How many know that for centuries “Holy Ireland,” as it was called, was also called “The Land of Saints and Scholars?” Who among them has heard of how it was Irish missionaries who brought the Gospel of Christ to most of pagan Europe, or how the ancient Christians of Ireland based their culture around monasteries.

The bright green jewel of Ireland today is still home to literally hundreds, maybe even thousands, of holy sites, places with spiritual significance, where saints worked miracles, or were martyred. Scattered among the countryside, one can still find remote hermitages and early church enclosures, lonely cross-slabs, and the well-worn tracks of ancient pilgrims. There are prehistoric wells, once used as healing wells by Druids, then sanctified by Christian teachers, such as St. Patrick, as fonts for baptism and the healing of the sickness of sin. It is one thing to read about these places in books, but it is altogether a different experience to see them first hand, preserved for centuries by the inborn reverence of the Irish people for such places.

For an Orthodox Christian, especially one whose own ancestry is European, a pilgrimage to Ireland can be a way to learn about—and to connect to—a Christian past that is Western but is also familiar ground for those with Eastern sensibilities. Ireland cannot be said to have been “Orthodox” with a capital “O” as though it were one of the Patriarchal Churches of the East, but it was certainly “Orthodox” in that it was of the same Gospel, the same Holy Spirit, and the same Holy Baptism as those Churches, and “Holy Ireland” was a welcome home for any Orthodox brother or sister whose travels brought them across land and seas to that far outpost. In his fascinating book, How the Irish Saved Civilization, Thomas Cahill tells of the direct connections the Irish Church had with the Church of the East:

After Patrick, they (the Irish) experienced an influx of anchorites and monks fleeing before the barbarian hordes, and these not doubt provided them with some finer points on monastic life. “All the learned men on this side of the sea,” claims a note in a Leyden manuscript of this time, ''took flight for transmarine places like Ireland, bringing about a great increase in learning''-- and doubtlessly, a spectacular increase in the number of books--''to the inhabitants of those regions.'' But not a few of these men were bone-thin ascetics from such Roman hinterlands as Armenia, Syria, and the Egyptian desert. The Ulster monastery of Bangor, for instance, claimed in its litany to be “ex Aegypto transducta” (“translated from Egypt”).

Another reason for an Orthodox Christian to leave the comforts of home to make a pilgrim journey to Ireland, is to bring comfort and support to the fledgling Orthodox Church in Ireland. Saint Ignatius Antiochian Orthodox Christian Church of Belfast, NI, the parish that sponsors the Orthodox Ireland Pilgrimages, has only been in existence for a few years but is flourishing to the point that it has outgrown two meeting places. Many tribulations have wracked this lovely island over the centuries, not the least of these being the recent times the Irish refer to as the “Troubles.” But the Orthodox Church in Ireland today is a reminder of the healing, the love and the unity found in Christ. Please keep this work in your prayers, and seek God to see if you are called to support this work with your time and substance.

Athanasius Blalock

Read about the upcoming May 2009 pilgrimage!