How Did Orthodoxy Reach Ireland?

This limerick captures the character of the Irish priest, a respected figure often depicted in a humorous light. The priest’s dedication to his work, even if it leads to an unintended mishap, adds an element of physical comedy.

“A priest with a pail from Athlone,

Tried to bless every stone near his home.

But he tripped and fell hard,

In the churchyard, by the yard,

And found himself soaked to the bone.”

Preface: Greek and Greek-speaking Christians constituted the greater part of the early Church. With the diffusion Hellenism, as early as the fourth century before the Christian era, the Greeks had come to constitute a very important if not a dominant element in the Near East, North Africa, and Western Europe including Ireland, where the druid influence gave way to the Orthodoxy. The rural and cultural identity readily accepted Orthodox Christianity. It was in 1066 the political winds of England forced changes in religious practices and affiliations throughout the Britain.

by Monk Nicodemus, edited

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.

St. Peter's & St. Paul's Indian Orthodox Church based in Drogheda,

The two Apostles whose teachings had the greatest influence upon the Celtic peoples were the brothers James and John, the sons of Zebedee.

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.

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.

BEDE, The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, 2007, Bishops from Ireland and Scotland attended the Council at Nice, and Ireland Orthodox Churches received instructions regarding observance of Pascha and the Trinity and resisted Arianism forcefully.

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

Annunciation Church in Ireland

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.).

Epilogue: Some Orthodox thus assert the Celtic Church preached a form of Christianity that was free of Roman legalism. They conclude that the Church in Ireland was, in effect, a provincial form of the Orthodox Christianity as survives in Eastern Orthodoxy. Followers note that while Irish Christianity was historically tied to Western Christianity and the Catholic Church, Celtic Christians were often at odds with Catholic practice. Bede noted in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People that the Synod of Whitby in 663-664 put Celtic Christians in opposition to continental Catholics and their ritual practices. Irish, Scot, and Viking Varangians served and defended the Emperor, Patriarch and Constantinople from the Saracens, Ottomans, Crusaders, and others. The Varangians: Viking Conquerors turned Byzantium Honor Guard and died defending them..

Some Orthodox thus assert the Celtic Church preached a form of Christianity that was free of Roman legalism. They conclude that the Church in Ireland was, in effect, a provincial form of the Orthodox Christianity as survives in Eastern Orthodoxy. Followers note that while Irish Christianity was historically tied to Western Christianity and the Catholic Church, Celtic Christians were often at odds with Catholic practice. Bede noted in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People that the Synod of Whitby in 663-664 put Celtic Christians in opposition to continental Catholics and their ritual practices.

In 1981, the Greek Orthodox parish of Our Lady of the Annunciation was established in the former St Mary's Church, Dublin, which had been given over by the Church of Ireland. On 24 May of that year, the Greek Orthodox archbishop of Great Britain and Ireland consecrated and elevated the building to the status of a cathedral. When these premises were declared unsafe in 1986, the parish transferred to a house chapel in Artane. In November of that same year, the Church of Ireland transferred another of its defunct churches, in Ranelagh, for Greek Orthodox use. In 1994 the first permanent church was consecrated in Arbour Hill, Dublin. The adjacent hall in Arbour hill is used by the Hellenic Community of Ireland for the delivery of Greek language classes. The community was served by Irish born Father Thomas Carroll until his retirement in 2020. The Holy Metropolis of Ireland, led by Bishop Iakovos of Zinoupolis, was established following a Holy Synod on 22 March 2024.