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Iona Abbey is an abbey located on the island of Iona, just off the Isle of Mull on the West Coast of Scotland.
It is one of the oldest Christian religious centres in Western Europe. The abbey was a focal point for the spread of Christianity throughout Scotland and marks the foundation of a monastic community by St. Columba, when Iona was part of the Kingdom of Dál Riata. Saint Aidan served as a monk at Iona, before helping to reestablish Christianity in Northumberland, on the island of Lindisfarne
Iona Abbey is the spiritual home of the Iona Community, an ecumenical Christian religious order, whose headquarters are in Glasgow. The Abbey remains a popular site of Christian pilgrimage today. This text is from the entry in Wikipedia.
A monastery was founded on this tiny island (about 4 miles long) in 563 AD by St Columba who arrived with a few companions from Ireland to bring Christianity to the Scots. Later, between the years 1150 and 1550 AD a Benedictine monastery was built, but this later fell into ruin during the Scottish reformation. The picture above left shows its ruinous state in the late 19th Century.
In the early 20th century the property was given to the Iona Cathedral Trust, which undertook to rebuild the abbey buildings. Today it is a functioning religious establishment and home to the Iona Community. When I visited in 1986 I had the huge good fortune to meet a world renowned theologian, Rosemary Ruether, who was also visiting at the time.
