Iona, a small island off the coast of Mull in the Scottish Hebrides, was the base from which Irish monasticism carried Christianity through much of Scotland and northern England, and it has been in religious use for close to fifteen centuries.
Columba's foundation
According to tradition Columba, an Irish monk and prince, came to Iona in 563 and founded a monastery that became one of the most influential in the insular Christian world. From Iona monks evangelised the Picts and, later, from its daughter house at Lindisfarne, the Anglo-Saxons of Northumbria. The monastery was a great centre of learning and manuscript production; the Book of Kells is thought by many to have been made, at least in part, on Iona before being taken to Ireland for safety from Viking raids. Iona became a burial place of kings, of Scotland and beyond.
The abbey and the crosses
The Viking age brought repeated raids and the killing of monks, and the community's fortunes rose and fell; a Benedictine abbey was established in the medieval period, fell into ruin after the Reformation, and was restored in the twentieth century. The island preserves early high crosses of carved stone, among the finest of their kind, and the restored abbey church.
A working community
Since 1938 Iona has been the home of the Iona Community, an ecumenical, dispersed Christian community founded by George MacLeod, which combines worship with social and political commitment, so the island functions as a living retreat centre rather than a monument. The crossing requires two ferries and accommodation is limited, which regulates numbers more effectively than any rule; Iona remains a place of pilgrimage and retreat and one of the cradles of Christianity in Britain.