Scotland, Christianity in

Scotland, Christianity in. The earliest evidence of Christianity is a number of inscribed monuments of the 5th and 6th cents. in SW Scotland. By the later 6th cent. St Columba and other Irish saints were active in the Kingdom of Dalriada (N. Scotland). Iona was largely responsible for the conversion of the Northumbrian kingdom of Bernicia, but the Columban Church lost influence here after King Oswiu adopted the Roman Easter in 664 and Northumbrian influence among the Picts led to their adopting the Roman practice in 710. The union of Pictland and Dalriada in the 9th cent. and the gradual settling of the frontier with the English led to the creation of the Scottish kingdom. The English and Anglo-Norman connections of Queen Margaret (d. 1093) and her sons brought new Church leaders who transformed the structure of the Scottish Church. A territorial episcopate with clearly defined boundaries was supported by royally-imposed teind (tithe). Attempts by the Abp. of York to extend his metropolitan authority over the Scottish sees led in 1192 to a compromise unique in the history of the W. Church, whereby all of them except Galloway (which remained under York) were exempted from any superior authority except that of Rome; the Popes regarded themselves as Scotland's metropolitans. In the Middle Ages the Scottish Church was normally under royal control, and King and Pope seldom disagreed.

The first wave of the Reformation in Scotland was Lutheran, the second Calvinist. After the return of John Knox in 1559, the Reformed Church of Scotland was established on Presbyterian lines in 1560. For more than a century, however, the fortunes of Scottish Presbyterianism ebbed and flowed owing to the determination of the Stuart kings to make the Kirk episcopal. The imposition of the Prayer Book brought the conflict between the Kirk and Charles I to a head in 1637. In 1638 the Presbyterian National Covenant was subscribed and Episcopacy was swept away. In 1643 the alliance between the Scottish Covenanters and the Long Parliament was cemented by the Solemn League and Covenant, which was to impose Presbyterianism throughout the British Isles. The Westminster Assembly then produced a number of documents which were formally accepted as standards by the Church of Scotland. After the Restoration (1660) Episcopacy was re-established, but at the Revolution the Church of Scotland became Presbyterian again in 1690 and has remained so.

The Church of Scotland was weakened by a number of secessions in the 18th cent. and by the Disruption of 1843, when nearly a third of its ministers and members left the Establishment and founded the Free Church of Scotland. Later there were unions between different Presbyterian Churches in Scotland, notably in 1847 (Secession and Relief to form United Presbyterian), 1900 (United Presbyterian and Free to form United Free), and in 1929 (United Free and Church of Scotland under the name of the latter). After the 1929 reunion, the majority of the population belonged to the Church of Scotland, which is Presbyterian, national, endowed, and with its spiritual independence enshrined in Act of Parliament. From those who adhered to Episcopacy after 1690 arose the Episcopal Church of Scotland (since 1979 called the Scottish Episcopal Church). It is an autonomous Province of the Anglican Communion. It is governed by a General Synod, of which one House is comprised of the seven diocesan bishops. They elect one of their number as Primus, who is their chairman, but metropolitical authority resides with the College of Bishops, not an individual. The RC Church retained its hold on the descendants of those in parts of the Highlands who were never much influenced by the Reformation and on those of Irish extraction in the industrial Lowland areas. In recent years it has attracted a wider following and now comprises about 20 per cent of the population, roughly the same proportion as the Church of Scotland.