A Brief History of the Irish Orthodox Church

by Monk Nicodemus
1. How Did Orthodoxy Reach Ireland?
How did Orthodox Christianity come to this small green island off the shores of the
European continent in the uttermost West? Unknown to many, Christianity in Ireland
does have an Apostolic foundation, through the Apostles James and John, although the
Apostles themselves never actually visited there.
The Irish people were the westernmost extension of the vast Celtic civilization—whose
people called themselves the Gauls—which stretched from southern Russia through
Europe and eventually into the British Isles. The vastness of Celtic/Gallic civilization is
evident in the names used to designate countries within its entire territory: the land of
Galatia in Asia Minor, Gaul (France), Galicia (northwest Spain), and the land of the
Gaels (Ireland). The Celtic peoples (like the Jews) kept in very close contact with their
kinfolk across the Eurasian continent. When Christianity was first being spread by the
Apostles, those Celts who heard their preaching and accepted it (seeing it as the
completion of the best parts of their ancient traditions and beliefs) immediately told
their relatives, traveling by sea and land along routes their ancestors had followed since
before 1000 b.c.
The two Apostles whose teachings had the greatest influence upon the Celtic peoples
were the brothers James and John, the sons of Zebedee. After Pentecost, James first
preached the Gospel to the dispersed Israelites in Sardinia (an island in the
Mediterranean Sea off the east coast of Spain, which was used as a penal colony). From
there he went on to the Spanish mainland and traveled throughout the northern part of
Spain along the river Ebro, where his message was eagerly heard by the Celtic/Iberian
peoples, especially those in Galicia. This area continued to be a portal to Ireland for
many centuries, especially for the transmission of the Good News.
John preached throughout the whole territory of Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey), and
the many peoples living there accepted Christianity, including the Celtic peoples known
as the Galatians (in Cappadocia). These people also communicated with their relatives
throughout the Greco/Roman world of the time, especially those in Gaul. By the middle
of the 2nd century the Celtic Christians in Gaul asked that a bishop be sent to them,
and the Church sent St. Irenaeus, who settled at Lyons on the Rhone river. Among the
many works St. Irenaeus accomplished, the most important were his mastery of the
language of the local Celtic people and his preaching to them of the Christianity he had
received from St. Polycarp, the disciple of St. John the Theologian.
By the 4th century Christianity had reached all the Celtic peoples, and this “leaven” was
preparing people’s hearts to receive the second burst of Christian missionary outreach
to the Celts, through St. Hilary and St. Martin.
The seeds that St. Irenaeus planted bore abundant fruit in the person of St. Hilary of
Poitiers, who, having lived in Asia Minor, would be the link between East and West,
transmitting Orthodoxy in its fullness to the Celtic peoples. He was not only a great
defender of the Faith, but also a great lover of monasticism. This Orthodox Faith and
love for monasticism was poured into a fitting vessel—Hilary’s disciple, St. Martin of
Tours, who was to become the spiritual forefather of the Irish people. What Saints
Athanasius and Anthony the Great were to Christianity in the East, Saints Hiliary and
Martin were to the West.
By the 4th century an ascetic/monastic revival was occurring throughout Christendom,
and in the West this revival was being led by St. Martin. The Monastery of Marmoutier
which St. Martin founded near Tours (on the Loire in western France) served as the
training ground for generations of monastic aspirants drawn from the Romano-Celtic
nobility. It was also the spiritual school that bred the first great missionaries to the
British Isles. The way of life led at Marmoutier harmonized perfectly with the Celtic
soul. Martin and his followers were contemplatives, yet they alternated their times of
silence and prayer with periods of active labor out of love for their neighbor.
Some of the monks who were formed in St. Martin’s “school” brought this pattern back
to their Celtic homelands in Britain, Scotland and Wales. Such missionaries included
Publicius, a son of the Roman emperor Maximus who was converted by St. Martin, and
who went on to found the Llanbeblig Monastery in Wales—among the first of over 500
Welsh monasteries. Another famous disciple of St. Martin was St. Ninian, who traveled
to Gaul to receive monastic training at St. Martin’s feet, and then returned to Scotland,
where he established Candida Casa at Whithorn, with its church dedicated to St.
Martin. The waterways between Ireland and Britain had been continually traversed by
Celtic merchants, travelers, raiders and slave-traders for many centuries past, so the
Irish immediately heard the Good News brought to Wales and Scotland by these
disciples of Ninian.
About the same time that the missionaries were traveling to and from Candida Casa
amidst all this maritime activity, a young man named Patrick was captured by an Irish
raiding party that sacked the far northwestern coasts of Britain, and he was carried
back to Ireland to be sold as a slave. While suffering in exile in conditions of slavery for
years, this deacon’s son awoke to the Christian faith he had been reared in. His zeal was
so strong that, after God granted him freedom in a miraculous way, his heart was fired
with a deep love for the people he had lived among, and he yearned to bring them to the
light of the Gospel Truth. After spending some time in the land of Gaul in the
Monastery of Lérins, St. Patrick (†451), was consecrated to the episcopacy. He returned
to Ireland and preached with great fervor throughout the land, converting many local
chieftains and forming many monastic communities, especially convents.
It was during the time immediately following St. Patrick’s death, in the latter part of the
5th century, that God’s Providence brought all the separate streams of Christianity in
Ireland into one mighty rushing river.
While St. Patrick’s disciples continued his work of preaching and founding monastic
communities—it was his disciple, St. Mael of Ardagh (†481), for example, who tonsured
the great St. Brigid of Kildare (†523)—several other saints who were St. Patrick’s
younger contemporaries began to labor in the vineyard of Christ. These included Saints
Declan of Ardmore (†5th c.), Ailbhe of Emly (†527), and Kieran of Saighir (†5th c.).
Then came young Enda from the far western islands of Aran (off the west coast of
Ireland). He studied with St. Ninian at Whithorn, and thus received the flame of St.
Martin’s spiritual lineage with its ascetical training and mystical aspirations. Having
been fully formed in the Faith, St. Enda (†530) returned to the Aran Islands, where he
founded a monastery in the ancient tradition. It was on the Aran Islands that the
traditional founder of the Irish monastic movement, St. Finian, drank deep of the
monastic tradition established by St. Martin. Before Finian’s death in a.d. 548, he
founded the monastery of Clonard and was the instructor of a whole generation of
monks who became great founders of monasteries throughout Ireland, and great
missionaries as well. The most famous of his disciples were named the “Twelve
Apostles of Ireland,” and included Saints Brendan the Navigator, Brendan of Birr,
Columba of Iona, Columba of Terryglass, Comgall of Bangor, Finian of Moville, Mobhi
of Glasnevin, Molaise of Devenish, Ninnidh of Inismacsaint, Sinnell of Cleenish,
Ruadhan of Lorrha, and the great monastic father Kieran of Clonmacnois. By the
middle of the 6th century these men and their disciples had founded hundreds of
monasteries throughout the land and had converted all the Irish. And that was only the
beginning...
2. Why was Christianity Received so Quickly in Ireland?
Why were the Celtic peoples able to receive Christianity so readily and so eagerly? The
Church Fathers state that God prepared all peoples before the Incarnation of Christ to
receive the fullness of Truth, Christianity. To the Jews He gave the Israelite revelation.
Among the pagans, faint foreshadowings of the coming revelation were present in some
of their beliefs and best qualities. The Celtic peoples were no different—in some ways
they were better off than most pagans.
On a natural level, the Celtic peoples had a great love of beauty which found
overflowing expression as the Christian Faith, arts and culture developed in Ireland.
Their extreme and fiery nature, which had previously been expressed through war and
bloodshed, now manifested itself in great ascetic labors and missionary zeal undertaken
for love of God and neighbor.
Their great reverence for knowledge, especially manifested in lore, ancient history and
law, made it easy for them to have great respect for the ancient forms and theology of
the Church, which were based in ancient Israelite tradition. They had a great love for,
and almost religious belief in, the power of the spoken word—especially in “prophetic
utterances” delivered by their Druid poets and seers.
These perceived manifestations of “the wisdom of the Other World” were held in great
respect and awe by the Irish, as transmissions of the will of the gods, which could only
be resisted at great peril. When many of their Druid teachers wholeheartedly accepted
Christianity, and as Christians spoke the revealed word of God from the Scriptures or
from the Holy Spirit’s direct revelation, the people listened and obeyed. The Irish
possessed an intricate and detailed religious belief system that was primarily centered
in a worship of the sun, and a tri-theistic numerology—often manifesting itself in
venerating gods in threes, collecting sayings in threes (triads), etc.—which led to the
easy acceptance of the true fulfillment of this intuition in the worship of the Holy
Trinity. They also treasured a very strong belief in the afterlife, conceived as a paradisal
heavenworld in the “West” to which the souls of the dead passed to a life of immortal
youth, beauty and joy.
Even the societal structure of the Celts in Ireland prepared its peoples for Christianity.
In contrast to the urban-centered and highly organized mindset which prevailed in the
lands under Roman rule, Ireland (which was never conquered) preserved the ancient
family- and communal-based patterns of rural societies. They did not build cities or
towns, but settled in small villages or individual family farm holdings. The only
recognized “unit” was the tribe and its various family clans, centered around their
king’s royal hill fort. The economy remained wholly pastoral, in no way resembling the
Roman urban and civil systems. There were no city centers. The original apostolic
family-based model of an ascetic community, and its later monastery-based form,
manifested themselves in Ireland as a natural completion of what was already present.
Finally, the leadership and teaching roles previously held by the Druids, poets, lawyers
and their schools were naturally assumed by the monks and bishops of the Church and
their monasteries.
3. How Christianity Manifested Itself in Ireland
It was precisely because the monastic communities were like loving families that they
had such a long-lasting and complete influence on the Irish people as a whole. These
schools were the seedbeds of saints and scholars: literally thousands of young men and
women received their formation in these communities. Some of them would stay and
enter fully into monastic life, while others would return to their homes, marry, and
raise their children in accordance with the profound Christian way of life that they had
assimilated in the monastery. Some of the monks, either inspired by a desire for greater
solitude, or by zeal to give what they had received to others, would leave the shores of
their beloved homeland and set out “on pilgrimage for Christ” to other countries. Once
again they would travel along paths previously trodden by their ancestors—both the
pagans of long ago, and Christian pilgrims of more recent times.
Because these monastic communities were centers of spiritual transformation and
intense ascetic practice, they generated a dynamic environment which catalyzed the
intellectual and artistic gifts of the Irish people, and laid them before the feet of Christ.
In these monasteries, learning as well as sanctity was encouraged.
The Irish avidly learned to write in Latin script, memorized long portions of the
Scriptures (especially the Psalms), and even developed a written form for their
exceedingly ancient oral traditions. When the Germanic peoples invaded the Continent
(a.d. 400-550), the Gallic and Spanish scholars fled to Ireland with their books and
traditions of the Greco-Roman Classical Age. In Ireland these books were zealously
absorbed, treasured and passed on for centuries to come. Many Irish monks dedicated
their whole lives to copying the Scriptures—the Old and New Testaments, as well as
related writings—and often illuminated the manuscript pages with an intricate and
beautiful art that is one of the wonders of the world.
4. The Significance of the Orthodox Church in Ireland for Today
Much has been written about Ireland’s wandering missionary scholars (see Thomas
Cahill’s bestselling book, How the Irish Saved Civilization). The vibrant, community-
centered way of life and the deep, broad, ascetic-based scholarship of the Irish monks
revitalized the faith of Western European peoples, who were both devastated by wave
after wave of barbarian invasions and threatened by Arianism. More than this, the Irish
monks evangelized both the pagan conquerors and those Northern and Eastern
European lands where the Gospel had never taken root.
For Orthodox Christians, however, there are further lessons to be gained from the
examples of the Irish saints. These saints were formed in a monastic Christian culture
almost solely based on the “one thing needful” and the otherworldly essence of
Christian life. They represented Christ’s Empire, and no other. They were Christ’s
warriors, motivated solely by love of God and neighbor, acting in accordance with a
clear and firmly envisioned set of values and the goal of Heaven. Such selfless
embodiments of Christian virtues are all the more important to us today, who live in an
age characterized by the absence of such qualities. The unwavering dedication of the
Irish monks drew the Holy Spirit to them. And when He came, He not only deepened
and established their already-present resolution, but also filled them with the energy
and grace to carry it out. This is what is needed and yearned for today.
The task of the Orthodox Christian convert in the West today is to bridge the gap
between our time and the neglected and forgotten saints of Western Europe, who were
our spiritual forebears. As St. Arsenios of Cappadocia (†1924) said: “Britain will only
become Orthodox when she once again begins to venerate her saints.” In this task we
are very fortunate to have had a living example of one who did this: St. John
Maximovitch. During his years as a hierarch he was appointed to many different lands,
including France and Holland. One of the first things he set out to do upon reaching a
new country was to tirelessly seek out, venerate and promote the Orthodox saints of
that land, that he might enter into spiritual relationship with those who did the work
before him, and enlist their help in his attempts to continue their task. He considered
the glorification and promotion of local Orthodox saints as one of the most important
works that a hierarch could do for his flock.
We too must actively labor to venerate our ancestral saints, and must enter into
spiritual relationship with them as St. John did. While we should not merely
“appreciate” their lives and their example as an intellectual or aesthetic exercise,
neither should we selectively reinterpret their examples and way of life in the light of
modern fashions and “spiritualities.” We should, through our efforts, strive to bring
these saints into as clear a focus as possible before our mind’s eye, reminding ourselves
of the fact that they are alive and are our friends and spiritual mentors. The saints are,
according to St. Justin Popovich of Serbia (†1979), the continuation of the life of Christ
on earth, as He comes and dwells within the “lively stones” (cf. I Peter 2:5) that
constitute His Body, the Church (cf. Eph. 1:22-23). Therefore, honor given to the saints
is honor given to Christ; and it is by giving honor to Christ that we prepare ourselves to
receive the Holy Spirit.
May the saints of Ireland come close to us and bring us to the Heavenly Kingdom
together with them. Amen.
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Short Lives of Irish Saints Found in the 2003 St. Herman Calendar

ST. KIERAN OF CLONMACNOIS

September 9 (†545)
The great St. Columba of Iona (June 9, †597) described St. Kieran as a lamp, blazing
with the light of knowledge, whose monastery brought wisdom to all the churches of
Ireland. This earthly angel and otherworldly man was born in 512, the son of a
carpenter who built war chariots. He was spiritually raised by St. Finian in Clonard
(December 12, †549) and was counted among his “twelve apostles to Ireland.” After
spending some time in Clonard, the childlike, pure, innocent, humble and loving Kieran
set off to dwell in the wilderness with his God. After three years, when more and more
disciples began to come to him, he finally established a monastery in obedience to a
divine decree shortly before he reposed. He was taken by his Lord to dwell with Him
eternally at the age of 33. “Having lived a short time, he fulfilled a long time, for his
soul pleased the Lord” (Wisdom 4:13).

ST. KENNETH OF KILKENNY

October 11 (†600)
St. Kenneth was the son of a scholar-poet from Ulster. By race he was an Irish Pict and
spoke the Pictish language. He was a disciple of the great monastic Saints Finian of
Clonard (December 12, †549), Comgall of Bangor (May 11, †603), Kieran of
Clonmacnois (September 9, †545) and Mobhi of Glasnevin (October 12, †544). After the
death of St. Mobhi he took counsel from St. Finian. As a result (says the Martyrology of
Oengus), St. Kenneth sailed off to Scotland. There he lived for a while on the isle of
Texa, according to The Life of St. Columba by St. Adamnan of Iona (September 23,
†704). While there he often visited his old friend St. Columba (who had lived with him
in Glasnevin before departing for Iona) and helped him in his missionary labors to the
Picts. Later, he traveled back to Ireland, where he founded the Monasteries of Aghaboe
and Kilkenny before his death in the year 600.

ST. FINIAN OF CLONARD

December 12 (†549)
St. Finian, known as the “Tutor of the Saints of Ireland,” stands with St. Enda of Aran
at the head of the patriarchs of Irish monasticism. He showed great zeal and piety for
God from his youth. He had already founded three churches before he set off for Wales
to study at the feet of St. Cadoc at Llancarfan (September 25, †577). In Llancarfan he
became close friends with St. Gildas (January 29, †ca. 570), another of St. Cadoc’s
disciples. Upon his return to Ireland, he founded the great Monastery of Clonard
during the very same year the great St. Enda (March 21, †530) reposed in Aran. A
multitude of illustrious and holy men studied under St. Finian, including the famous
“Twelve Apostles of Ireland.” St. Finian founded many other monasteries during his
lifetime, including the famous island monastery of Skellig Michael off the southwest
coast of Ireland.

ST. ITA OF KILEEDY

January 15 (†570)
The gentle and motherly St. Ita was descended from the high kings of Tara. From her
youth she loved God ardently and shone with the radiance of a soul that loves virtue.
Because of her purity of heart she was able to hear the voice of God and communicate it
to others. Despite her father’s opposition she embraced the monastic life in her youth.
In obedience to the revelation of an angel she went to the people of Ui Conaill in the
southwestern part of Ireland. While there, the foundation of a convent was laid. It soon
grew into a monastic school for the education of boys, quickly becoming known for its
high level of learning and moral purity. The most famous of her many students was St.
Brendan of Clonfert (May 16, †577). She went to the other world in great holiness to
dwell forever with the risen Lord in the year 570.

ST. BRIGID OF KILDARE

February 1 (†523)
The well-known founder and abbess of the Monastery of Kildare has been revered and
loved throughout Europe for almost fifteen hundred years. While she was still a young
woman, her unbounded compassion for the poor, the sick and the suffering grew to
such proportions as to shelter all of Ireland. St. Brigid’s tonsure at the hands of St. Mael
of Ardagh (February 6, †488) inaugurated the beginning of women’s coenobitic
monasticism in Ireland. St. Brigid soon expanded it by founding many other convents
throughout Ireland. The gifts of the Holy Spirit shine brightly upon all through her—
both men and beasts—to this day. After receiving Holy Communion at Kildare from St.
Ninnidh of Inismacsaint (January 18, †6th c.) she gave her soul into the hands of her
Lord in 523.

ST. GOBNAIT OF BALLYVOURNEY

February 11 (†7th c.)
The future abbess and founder of the Ballyvourney Convent was born in the 6th century
in the southern lands of Ireland. To escape a feud within their family, her household
fled west to the Aran Islands and dwelt there for some time. It is possible that her
family accepted Christianity while living in the islands. Gobnait began to zealously
manifest her faith through her deeds, founding a church on the Inisheer Island. When
she returned east with her family, she encountered St. Abban of Kilabban (March 16,
†650), who became her spiritual mentor. Her family, greatly moved by their daughter’s
faith, gave her the land on which she and St. Abban founded the Monastery of
Ballyvourney. In Ballyvourney her sanctity quickly revealed itself, especially through
the abundant healings God worked through her prayers. Even the many bees that she
kept paid her obedience, driving off brigands and other unwelcome visitors.

ST. OENGUS THE CULDEE

March 11 (†824)
While still a youth St. Oengus entered the Monastery of Cluain-Edneach, which was
renowned for its strict ascetic life and was directed by St. Malathgeny (October 21,
†767). He had an especially great love for the Lives of the Saints. After his ordination to
the priesthood, he withdrew to a life of solitude. For his holy way of life many called
him the “Céile Dé” (Culdee) or “the friend of God.” After many people disturbed his
solitude, he slipped away secretly and entered the Monastery of Tallaght, which was
then directed by St. Maelruin (July 7, †792). He entered the monastery as a lay worker,
laboring at the most menial tasks for seven years until God revealed his identity to St.
Maelruin. There he mortified his flesh with such ascetic feats as standing in icy water.
St. Oengus wrote the Martyrology of Tallaght with St. Maelruin. After Maelruin’s death
in 792, St. Oengus returned to Cluain-Edneach and wrote many more works in praise of
the saints, including his well-known Martyrology and the Book of Litanies. He reposed
in 824 and became the first hagiographer of Ireland.

ST. PATRICK OF IRELAND

March 17 (†451)
The most famous of all the saints of the Emerald Isle is undoubtedly her illustrious
patron St. Patrick. Reared in Britain and the son of a deacon, St. Patrick was captured
and enslaved by Irish raiders while still a youth. Thus, he was carried off to the land he
would later enlighten with the Gospel: Ireland. During his captivity, the faith of his
youth was aroused in him, and shortly thereafter he miraculously escaped his servitude.
Some years later, he received a divine call to bring his new-found faith back to the Irish.
For this task, he prepared as best he could in Gaul, learning from St. Germanus of
Auxerre (July 31, †448) and the fathers of the Monastery of Lérins. While in Ireland he
ceaselessly traveled and preached the Christian Faith to his beloved Irish people for
almost twenty years until his blessed repose in 451.

ST. ENDA OF ARAN

March 21 (†530)
St. Enda is described as the “patriarch of Irish monasticism.” After many years living as
a warrior-king of Conall Derg in Oriel, St. Enda embraced the monastic life. His interest
in monasticism originally grew as a result of the death of a young prospective bride
staying in the community of his elder sister, St. Fanchea (January 1, †ca. 520). St.
Fanchea suggested that he enter the Whithorn Monastery in southwestern Scotland.
After some years in Whithorn he returned to Ireland and settled on the fallow, lonely
Aran Islands off her western shores. During the forty years of his severe ascetic life
there, he fathered many spiritual disciples—including Sts. Jarlath of Cluain Fois (June
6, †560) and Finian of Clonard (December 12, †545)—and laid the foundation for
monasticism in Ireland. St Enda reposed in the year 530 in his beloved hermitage on
Aran.

ST. DYMPHNA, WONDER-WORKER AND MARTYR OF GHEEL

May 15 († early 7th c.)
St. Dymphna was the daughter of a pagan king and a Christian mother in Ireland.
When her mother died, her father desired to take his own daughter to wife. Dymphna
fled with her mother’s instructor, the priest Gerberen, to the continent. Her father
followed and eventually found them. When Dymphna refused to submit to his unholy
desire, he had them both beheaded at Gheel in what is today Belgium. Throughout the
centuries she has shown special care and concern from the other world for those
suffering from mental illnesses and is greatly venerated throughout Europe and
America.

ST. KEVIN OF GLENDALOUGH

June 3 (†618)
The path of St. Kevin’s early life was well laid. When St. Kevin was between the ages of
seven and twelve, he was tutored by the desert-loving St. Petroc of Cornwall (June 4,
†594), who was then studying in Ireland. After St. Petroc left for Wales, the twelve-
year-old St. Kevin entered the Monastery of Kilnamanagh. There his humility and the
holiness of his life amazed all. After his ordination to the priesthood he followed his
tutor’s desert-loving example and set out to establish his own hermitage. He settled in
an ancient pagan cave-tomb on a crag above the upper lake of Glendalough. For many
years he lived in this beautiful desert wilderness like another St. John the Baptist. All
the animals behaved toward him as with Adam before the Fall. Disciples soon gathered
around him and St. Kevin was constrained to become the founder and Abbot of the
famous Glendalough Monastery. He died at the great old age of 120 in 618 and went to
his Lord.

ST. COLUMBA OF IONA

June 9 (†597)
St. Columba (or Columcille) is one of the greatest of all the saints of Ireland. Born into
an exceedingly prominent noble family, the Ui-Niall clan, he forsook his wealth and all
earthly privileges and laid his ample natural gifts at the feet of the Lord, becoming a
monk at a young age. He studied under some of the holiest men of his day, including
Saints Finian of Clonard (December 12, †549) and Mobhi of Glasnevin (October 12,
†545). After St. Mobhi’s death, St.Columba went on to found the monasteries of Derry
and Durrow. He traveled as a missionary throughout his beloved Ireland for almost 20
years. In 565 he settled on the island of Iona, off the west coast of Scotland, where he
remained for 32 years and brought about the conversion of many. He reposed on Iona
in great holiness on June 9, 597.

ST. COWEY OF PORTAFERRY, ABBOT OF MOVILLE

November __ (†8th c.)
St. Cowey is a little-known monastic saint who lived near the tip of the Ards Peninsula
in the late 7th and early 8th centuries. For many years he labored there as a hermit,
sending up his prayers to God during his long nightly vigils in the depths of the forest.
Three holy wells are still to be found where he labored, as well as an ancient church
built amidst them, which looks eastward over the Irish Sea. Beside the church, an
ancient cemetery completes the view that greets the pilgrim’s eye. St. Cowey’s holiness
attracted many to his quiet, little hermitage. Tradition holds that he was made abbot of
the great Moville Monastery further north on the peninsula in 731, possibly shortly
before he reposed around the middle of the 8th century. His memory has been kept and
treasured by the local inhabitants of the nearby town of Portaferry for over twelve
hundred years.

ST. SUIBHNE OF DAL-ARAIDHE

(† late 7th century)
Both the early Church of Syria and the early Church of Ireland were famous for their
extraordinary ascetics—men and women who were so affected by the touch of Divinity
that they fled from all that might interfere with their struggle, even renouncing their
reason. Syria gave the Church the stylites, and also the “grazers': severe ascetics who
lived almost like animals, having no dwellings and eating whatever vegetation grew in
their vicinity. The Irish manifested a similar form of sanctity in the geilt, who were a
cross between fools-for-Christ and the Syrian grazers. The most famous of all the geilt
was St. Suibhne of Dal-Araidhe, formerly a violent Irish chieftain whose murdeous
ways brought the curse of God upon him. In his profound repentance, he took upon
himself the extreme ascetic way of life of the geilt, living in the open-air wilderness.
Before St. Suibhne died he gave a life confession to his spiritual father, St. Moling
(†722). St. Moling preserved this account in the form of a long poem. This poem has
come down to us today, having been only slightly altered over the years (in very obvious
places). It is not only very beautiful poetry but also a spiritually instructive
autobiographical document. The Saint foresaw that since he had previously lived by the
sword, he would die by violent means. He was murdered at the end of the 7th century in
St. Moling’s monastery and buried nearby.

From 2003 edition of The Saint Herman Calendar. Copyright 2001 by the St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood,
Platina, California. Used with permission. Posted July 4, 2006.