a christian pilgrimage to ireland.

John 1:14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. (NIV)

Tailored Christian Pilgrimages the UK and Ireland.

In the centuries before the tragic schism that separated the Eastern Church from the Western Church, Ireland was an Island teeming with monasteries and churches. It became the home of thousands of saints, ascetics, and miracle workers of all types, and was the place from which the rest of Europe was evangelized and civilized.

Scholars tell us that monks traveled from as far away as Egypt and Syria to join in the spiritual phenomena taking place on that remarkable island. Now the island is filled with the physical remnants of that era in the form of ruins and sacred sites. It is as though the spirituality of that ancient, almost unremembered time came under some sort of enchantment and was turned to stone, waiting in silence over the centuries for a time of reawakening, when the life is renewed and the ancient places are restored, and the island is known once more as, Holy Ireland, the home of saints and scholars a christian pilgrimage ireland.

• Faith Pilgrimages.
• Choir Tours.

a christian pilgrimage to ireland.

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”). A study of early Irish Christianity is also familiar ground for anyone familiar with the literature of the early Eastern Christian Church. Here we meet the same variety of wandering preachers, preaching the Gospel of Jesus, repentance, and baptism in the name of the Holy Trinity; the same miracle-working hermits, the same abbots and abbesses leading communities of the faithful. It should be obvious to anyone that these were people of the same essence and Spirit as their Orthodox brothers in the distant East.

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.

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