Columba and evangelicals
In the midst of the pandemic many churches across Ireland are celebrating a prince, born into a minor royal family 1,500 years ago, who became the founder of one of the greatest evangelistic movements ever in Europe.
Between 7 December 2020 and the same day in 2021, senior church leaders from across County Donegal in the northwest of Ireland are uniting to pray together, and walk together, to celebrate the life and ministry of Colmcille (Columba), born in a remote part of the county, who founded a movement that spread the gospel to the pagan Scots, and then to the pagan Anglo-Saxons, and inspired generations of Irish and English Christians to bring the gospel to their pagan kinsmen in mainland Europe.
As a part of the celebrations a new Slí Cholmcille (Columba Trail) has been established – an eight-day Camino walk passing through many of the sites associated with his family, childhood, life and ministry. A schools project has been launched in the hope of inspiring young people with his vision of evangelism. Members of the evangelical community are planning to distribute specially produced copies of the Gospel of Mark in English and Irish, and other activities to encourage people to discover for themselves our Lord Jesus Christ, who inspired Colmcille to establish an evangelistic movement that had a huge impact on the spiritual future of Europe.
Potted history
Colmcille or Columba (b.521) was a leading Irish missionary in the Celtic church of the 500s. From a minor royal family, he was educated in Dublin and County Down. He established a monastery in Derry/ Londonderry and then went on to lead a successful evangelistic mission to pagans in Scotland. Many Irishmen joined the mission and, as the pagan Anglo-Saxons had recently conquered what became England, the mission then tilted towards northern England around 600. Within a generation a growing work was established in the north under Aidan (b.590), at Lindisfarne near the important royal castle of Bamburgh. Successive generations carried on the work in England (e.g. Wilfred b.633), and Irish and English missionaries also went to evangelise the pagan peoples of what are now Holland and Luxembourg under a northern English missionary, Willibrord (b.658), and to Germany and Austria under the southern English missionary Boniface (b.675).
