The Church - Bishopric of Sodor and Man

Christianity

Legend tells that the first Christian on Man was King Mordains, who was converted by Joseph of Arimathea, when Joseph was bringing his staff and the Holy Grail to Britain. This notwithstanding, church records tell that Christianity first fully came to the island in 444 AD, when St. Patrick landed on Man at Peel. The Christians on Man still mostly follow the ways of the Celtic “Culdee” church (from the Goidaelic cele De, “servants of God”) — though more and more of the parish priests are now being appointed from the mainland Latin Church. The English Church was charged with “reforming” the Irish Church by Pope Adrian IV in his Laudabiliter Papal Bull in 1155 AD, and this ruling has generally been extended to other areas of Celtic Christianity (Scotland and the Hebrides). Since the Celtic Church held the Synod of Cashel in 1172, the Celtic Church has been officially subsumed into the Latin Church, but this ruling has yet to “trickle down” completely to the level of individual parish churches and monasteries. The current bishop of Man and the Isles, Reginald Ivarsson, is the king’s nephew, and is mostly a political appointee; he does not take much of an active role in Church matters. Due to the historical political dominance of Norway, the diocese of Man and the Isles (also known as the diocese of “Sodor and Man”) is actually part of the Archbishopric of Trondhjem in Norway, despite its closer proximity to the British Isles. On Man, there are two basic kinds of church building — the ancient Celtic “keeills”, and the more modern Norse “kirks” (from kirkja — Norse for “church” there are more than 200 such churches on Man in 1220, but these are unevenly spread across the island — with many treens having multiple keeills, and some having no church at all. The keeills are small, dry-stone buildings with low, turf roofs (some are as small as 10’ x 6’, with a roof as low as 6’ they have no nave or chancel, and the altar is always against the eastern wall. The kirks are larger wooden, or stone-and-mortar buildings with wooden roofs, and a more modern layout. Many of the older keeills have fallen into disrepair, and several kirks have been built on sites where keeills used to be — meaning that both types of church are associated with the “chibbyr” holy wells. Also, Norse Christians have often renovated keeills without rebuilding them entirely — meaning that many churches share fea- tures of both types of church building.

Founding Date

447

Type

Religious, Bishopric

Location

The Isle Of Skye

Controlled Territories