Celtic Christianity

This article discusses only historic Celtic Christianity. It does not address the modern forms of Christian doctrine and practice which call themselves "Celtic Church".

It is easy to exaggerate the cohesiveness of the Celtic Christian communities. Scholars have long recognised that the term "Celtic Church" is simply inappropriate to describe Christianity among Celtic-speaking peoples, since this would imply a notion of unity, or a self-identifying entity, that simply did not exist. As Patrick Wormald explained, “One of the common misconceptions is that there was a ‘Roman Church’ to which the ‘Celtic’ was nationally opposed.” Celtic-speaking areas were part of Latin Christendom as a whole, wherein a significant degree of liturgical and structural variation existed, along with a collective veneration of the Bishop of Rome that was no less intense in Celtic areas. Nonetheless, it is possible to talk about certain traditions present in Celtic-speaking lands, and the development and spread of these traditions, especially in the sixth and seventh centuries. Some scholars have chosen to apply the term ‘Insular Christianity’ to this Christian practice that arose around the Irish Sea, a cultural nexus in the sub-Roman period that has been called the ‘Celtic Mediterranean’. The term “Celtic Christianity” may also be employed simply in the sense of different Catholic practices, institutions, and saints amongst the Celtic peoples, in which case it could be used meaningfully well beyond the seventh century.

As the most remote province of the Roman Empire, Britain was reached by Christianity in the first few centuries of the Christian era, with the first recorded martyr in Britain being St. Alban (during the reign of Diocletian). The process of Christianisation intensified following the legalization of the religion under Constantine in the 4th century, and its promotion by subsequent Christian emperors. In 407, the Empire withdrew its legions from the province to defend Italy from Visigothic attack. The city of Rome would be sacked in 410, and the legions did not permanently return to Britain. Thus, Roman governmental influence ended on the isle, and, with the subsequent decline of Roman imperial political influence, Britain and the surrounding isles developed distinctively from the rest of the West. The Irish Sea acted as a centre from which a new culture developed among the Celtic peoples, and Christianity acted centrally in this process.

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