Christianity probably came to England and Wales with the Romans, who first arrived in 43 AD, only a few years after the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ.[1] Recent research suggests that the faith was well represented as early as 84 AD, when Britain began to be administered as a Roman Province.[2] The North African scholar, Tertullian, wrote that Christianity had become firmly established in Britain by 200 AD,[3] and one hundred years later, in 312 AD, the Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity while he was based at York.
By the end of the 4th century, all other beliefs and pagan practices had been swept aside by the Spanish emperor, Theodosius I (347–395 AD), who decreed that conversion to ‘Nicene Trinitarian’ Christianity was obligatory throughout the Roman Empire.[4]
Meanwhile, a strand of the Christian faith known today as Celtic Christianity took root in Ireland and travelled with St Columba to Iona and from there across to Lindisfarne on the north-east coast of England.
Ever since the Synod of Whitby until England’s rather shaky reformation in the mid-16th century (and John Knox’s astonishing one-week reformation in August 1560) Roman Catholicism had been the sole church denomination in Great Britain and Ireland. But since that time, different forms of Christian worship have evolved, many emerging for the first time. Methodism, Quakerism, the Baptist Church and our special claim to fame, the worldwide Anglican Communion, all have their origins here.
These different denominations have grown and spread around the world: the Anglican Communion currently has 85 million+ members in 165+ countries;[5] the Baptist Church claims 75 to 105 million members; the Presbyterian Church, 40 to 50 million members worldwide (although Presbyterianism is not a completely British development, as it owes much to 16th century reformers in Switzerland and Germany) and the Methodist Church has 80 million+ members.[6]
There is so much more to discover. My research has only just skimmed the surface. Every book referenced in the text is worth reading, every personality and footnote is worth following up. Please take these chapters as a starting point from which to discover much, much more about the riches of God’s kingdom in England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. And pray for reconciliation: according to John’s Gospel, the night before he died, Jesus asked his heavenly Father that his followers would experience such ‘perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me’.[7]
Footnotes
[1] In 2014, archaeologists in Bishop Auckland found a 3rd-century Roman ring that pre-dates the time of Emperor Constantine. The silver ring is set with a red stone showing the image of two fish hanging from an anchor – a common symbol for Christianity in the Roman Empire. See www.culture24.org.uk
[2] The Prevalence of Christianity in Roman Britain to AD 410, Janka Dowding. See Hirundo, the McGill Journal of Classical Studies and www.mgh-bibliothek
[3] Tertullian (c 155–240 AD) was from Carthage. In Adversus Judaeos he refers to ‘Britannorum inaccesa Romanis loca’. See www.mgh-bibliothek
[4] For more see Chapter 4, Patrick, Shepherd and Slave
[5] Anglican Communion website
[6] www.methodist.org.uk
[7] John 17:23 (NLT) Holy Bible, New Living Translation © 1996, 2004 by Tyndale Charitable Trust