Iona Community

The Iona Community was founded in Scotland in 1938 by the Revd George MacLeod, later Lord MacLeod of Fiunary. It rebuilt the ancient monastic buildings on the island of Iona, from which St Columba* sent out missionaries such as St Aidan to convert Scotland and the north of England in the 6th century. With the rebuilding of the abbey of Iona, the Community has sought also the ‘rebuilding of the common life’, bringing together (in the words of its website) ‘work and worship, prayer and politics, the sacred and the secular’. It has three centres: at Iona itself, on the neighbouring island of Mull, and in Glasgow. The hymnody of the Iona Community is a growing body of work which began to appear...