Looking Back: Completion of Iona Rebuilding

From July 1965

COMPLETION OF IONA REBUILDING
Open-Air Communion Service

On 6th June—the day of Pentecost—a congregation of 700 gathered in front of the Abbey to give thanks for the completion of the rebuilding after 26 years. 450 went by chartered steamer.

The new West Range, to house the kitchen, the caretaker's house, and the place of reception, was opened by Major David Russell, son of Sir David Russell, who first instituted retreats for divinity students on the island.

He tapped with a shepherd's crook on the oak door of the building. Through it he entered the cloister followed by a procession of clergy to bring out the elements of bread and wine for the service of Holy Communion.

Those who served the Communion elements included two of the ex-officio trustees of the Abbey appointed in the deed of trust signed 66 years ago by the Eighth Duke of Argyll. They were the Principal Clerk of the General Assembly, the Rev. J. B. Longmuir; and the Procurator of the Church of Scotland, Mr. J. P. MacDonald, Q.C. Others taking part were the parish minister, the Rev. Dr. David Stiven; the Clerk to the Presbytery of Mull and Lorne, the Rev. Duncan MacCallum; and the Moderator of the Synod of Argyll, the Rev. Christopher Mackinnon.

In this generation, Dr. Macleod said, we are learning that holiness is not primarily with cardinals but with carpenters; not primarily with ministers but with masons.

In the idea of the Priesthood of all believers—the ministry of the laity—something quite revolutionary was happening.

Dr. Macleod spoke in particular of the work of three of the men who had been engaged on the rebuilding: Bill Amos, their first mason and a superb craftsman, who died of cancer; Charles Kirkpatrick, “who loved this place and its purpose and was killed in performance of an entry that the place might be built”; and Calum MacPherson, who had kept the work together through the years.

Appeal

Dr. George F. Macleod, leader of the Iona Community, said in his sermon that Iona might well be “the rallying point of the new Reformation coming into focus.”

At the close of the Communion service, a light was switched on in the St. Columba Shrine in the corner formed by the new west range and the west end of the Abbey. It will be lit day and night, summer and winter, and because it is visible from the sea it will be trusted on Admiralty maps.

An appeal is presently being made from Candlemaker Row, Edinburgh, for the completion of the endowment fund of the Abbey and its buildings.

October 1938: The Iona Community - What it is, and What it is not by George MacLeod

Iona 1949

October 1954: Summer on Iona

June 1975: Macleod at 80

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