" When Christianity arrived on the ebb" Photo Album

On the way to an island, the most natural thing to expect would be that the car will stop somewhere on the coast of the mainland, for you to continue your journey with a vessel. This, however, is no longer valid if you start going to Lindisfarne, an islet in the north-east coast of Britain, nearly two hours north-west of Edinburgh or one hour south of Berwick, the city standing in the characteristic for the British identity, border line of Scotland and England.

Our bus passed by the edge of the mainland and accelerated on a paved with asphalt strap of land, approximately 2km long, on both sides of which flat, sandy surfaces extended. At the end of it we spotted Lindisfarne. The wet strap, between soaking wetlands, gave evidence that it was a passage offered whenever the sea made way on ebb. At least in July (the month we were there, in 1999), twice a day, the tide makes Lindisfarne a real island, surrounding it for several hours with seawater, to be followed by the ebb, revealing for nearly seven hours this earthly connection of the land and the island.

Along the passable strap the visitor will detect some canopies raised high above sea level, such as those used by lifeguards at the beach nowadays. A little further from the passage and more or less parallel to it, is a series of poles five meters tall, thrusted in the earth, that still indicates today another itinerary the pilgrims followed before the construction of the asphalted road. Both (poles and canopies) were valuable, since they marked the passage and helped the hiker pilgrims in case the tide impeded them unexpectedly.

Lindisfarne is closely related to the Christianization of England in the 7 th century A.D. Besides, this is why the surname "Holy Island" was given to it in the 11 th century, which is nowadays used along with its original name, perhaps even more than that. To some people this refers to the Celtic past of the area (that is, before the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons in the middle of the 5 th century) and is composed of the name of the river Lindis and the Celtic word Farne, meaning earth or island. Others, though, have supported that this is a posterior naming, meaning "the island of men from (the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of) Lindsey".

The island has the shape of a small axe, the handle of which forms the northern side of it and has a length of about 5km, and the metallic part of which has a length of about 2 square km. There, on its southern side, is located the small settlement of the island and the traces of the first Christian presence, for which we will talk further down.

In order to understand the religious map of Britain in the beginning of the 7 th century, let us take into consideration the following coordinates: Christianity had, in various ways entered for the first time during the 2 nd century, and a local Celtic Church was established. Particularly substantive and exceptionally fruitful was its rooting at the north-east side by St. Columba, coming from Ireland, who founded a famous monastic community on the island of Iona in 563, which for centuries operated as a spiritual and missionary catalyst.

In the middle of the 5 th century pagan Anglo-Saxons settled in the country, to who later on a missionary interest was expressed by two centers; on one hand was the Celtic Church and on the other was Rome. Certainly both were local Churches of the one and undivided Christian Church, each with its own peculiarities but not different confessions. However, we will not refer to these missionary efforts for now, even though they have great content, so as to be able to focus or attention on Lindisfarne.

Around 633, in the Anglo-Saxon kingdom, where Lindisfarne belonged to, king Oswald had embraced Christianity but the people remained pagan. Oswald had requested a missionary from Iona. The first monk Iona sent met so many difficulties that he was forced to go back unsuccessful. In 635, though, Aidan was sent, an ascetic who had a particular skill in communicating with another nation. Imitating, perhaps, the monastery of his origin, he chose Lindisfarne to build a monastery on its southern coast. Aidan became the first bishop of the region and his monastery a missionary center for centuries, always preserving special ties to the "mother" monastery of Iona. Nothing has remained from the (mainly made of wood) edifices of it, the first monastery of Lindisfarne. There are only the ruins of a Benedictine monastery built at the same spot in the end of the 11 th century and to the front of which a contemporary statue of Aidan, the man who enlightened the English people, has been placed. What has been saved from the period of the first monastery and is exposed nowadays at an adjacent small museum) are some stone plaques with engraved crosses, scenes from the life of Christ and other images. Some are dated as having been constructed around 700A.D.

Aidan passed away in 651 and was recognized as a saint of the Church, just like Oswald, who was killed in 642. Lindisfarne reached its zenith when St. Cuthbert (643-687) had the priorship of the monastery. Particularly ascetic, he would prefer to retire to a cell he had built on a rocky islet, a few meters across the monastery. Its connection and cutting-off from Lindisfarne depended on the tide. When it was ebb time it didn't take us more than 3 minutes of walking on wet sand, stones, seaweed and colonies of mussels in order to get on the islet and locate the traces of the cell, where this day a wooden cross has been placed.

During the last years of his life, Cuthbert decided to become more ascetic. He retired to Inner Farne, one of the Farne islets, 7 miles to the south of Lindisfarne. Those islets have a number of 15to 28, with the concept that during the tide some of them are covered entirely. The sight we set our eyes on while we were sailing around a lot of them was impressive. Vertical Rocks, full of seabird flocks and sea veiled reefs where seals were resting. We disembarked on Inner Farne, where, too, nothing of the saint's hermitage remains. There is a posterior chapel, though, the oldest parts of which date back to the 14 th century. The island ?just like the rest of the complex- is preserved as a wildlife sanctuary, and Cuthbert is considered to be the first man who introduced rules of ecological sensibility and protection of the birds, especially a kind of wild ducks that, according to tradition, accompanied the saint.

From the tranquility of Inner Farne, king Eggfried moved Cuthbert in 685 and asked of the wellp0known and venerable ascetic to become a bishop. Cuthbert unwillingly accepted (he was even ordained by the Greek in origin and important Arch Bishop of Canterbury, Theodore), but after two years he retired to Inner Farne once more, where he passed away.

His body was transferred to Lindisfarne immediately and was buried in the monastery, inside the Holy Altar of St. Peter. Eleven years later, in 698, an exhumation was held and the body was found intact. It was then placed in a new, oaken coffin. The attribution of honors to the saint spreaded throughout the country. On occasion of this second burial of hic, the gorgeous Gospel of Lindisfarne was created, that is a beautiful illustrated hand-made Gospel, which is now found at the British Museum. Consecutively, the fate of Cuthbert's relics was about the same as the story of Lindisfarne itself. In 793 an unexpected storm broke out on the east coast of Britain: the raid of the Danish Vikings, or rather the first of a series of raids that were sweeping the country for nearly eighty years and brought inestimable devastation. The looting of Lindisfarne was a shock to the Christians of that time, some of which interpreted it as a divine disapproval of the cosmic thought to which the Christians and the rich monasteries had fallen into. The monks of Lindisfarne weren't able to remain at the monastery after the raid in 875. Taking along with them the bones of Aidan, the skull of king Oswald and the relics of Cuthbert they left towards the mainland. The last of these holy acquisitions of theirs, after a certain wandering, ended up at Daram in the year 995.

The burial point of it became the first stone for the following construction of the majestic cathedral. The relics came out almost unharmed by the destructions accompanying the Protestant Reformation of the 16 th century. Every now and then the tomb was opened and the body's intactness was ascertained. Only in 1827, just the bones were found, which are now buried in one of the Holy Altars of Daram's cathedral. Various objects that were near the body are now on display in the temple's museum and are of exceptional importance: St. Cuthbert's bosom cross, a wooden comb, a portable Holy Altar (which bears testimony that the saint went on pastoral and missionary journeys), parts of his original oaken coffin with carved images of Holy Mary Mother of God, bearing baby Jesus, the Apostles, the Archangels and others. So much the comb as the parts of the oaken coffin are sample of art influenced by the Mediterranean ecclesiastical art and its ties of the early British monasticism to the Egyptian and Byzantine monasticism. Apart from these objects from Cuthbert's time, more recent ones were found as well, which were offerings of pilgrims. Among them, a Byzantine silk clothe of the early 9 th century.

IN the end of the 11 th century the monks of Daram tried to revive Lindisfarne. They built a small Benedictine monastery to honor St. Cuthbert, at about the same place as the original monastery. After the Protestant Reformation of king Henry 8 th in 1537, just like all the monasteries in the country, this one was depopulated as well and ended up to be the ruins excavated to this day. A little further from these ruins, lies an Anglican parish temple of Holy Mary, which is supposed to have been built in the 13 th century at the place of an older, Anglo-Saxon church.

We didn't want to see Lindisfarne just in the few hours of the morning ebb. We preferred to stay over night in order to live its 24 hour cycle as fully as possible, not that much as visitors but much more as people seeking a tradition of our own and as pilgrims.