Justin Appel

Dear Friends,

Today is the feast of Saint Ninian, bishop, hermit, and evangelist of Scotland. Ninian left this life on September 16, 432 AD, and in accordance with Christian tradition, we celebrate his life on the day of his translation to new life.

Some time ago, through a connection made by an old friend, I was blessed to spend several days at Mull Monastery, an Orthodox institution dedicated to All Celtic Saints. The monastery incorporates a 18th-century church, built on top of the ruins of a 6th-century monastic foundation. A community lived here until the turn of the millennium, when Viking raids brought it to an end. The new construction is appropriately named after its patrons: The Church of St. Ninian and St. Cuthbert, or simply ‘Kilninian’.

Most of what we know about Ninian is the recorded by Saint Bede, in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Ninian founded a monastic community on the Isle of Whithorn in the SW corner of Scotland, and was know for preaching widely from the Lake District in the South, as far north as the Moray Firth. He also was knows to live as a hermit in a cave south of Whithorn — and indeed, today a cave in this location is known as Saint Ninian’s Cave.

I will not soon forget the impact that Mull and Iona had on me, imbued as it is with the memory of Celtic hermits and monastics such as Saint Brendon, Saint Oran, Saint Columba, and many others.

Mull Monastery is also a special place, not least for it’s unique iconographical tradition, produced in conjunction with a marvelously skilled Romanian iconographer and the Father Seraphim Aldea, the monastery’s founder. These icons are moving to a remarkable degree, combining stylistic elements of Byzantine and Egyptian icons, colors from the Book of Kells, with an almost expressionistic sense of the world’s suffering.

I include this link to the monastery’s icon page at their bookstore, and a video below of Fr. Seraphim introducing Kilninian.

Yours in Christ,
Justin