SAINT NINIAN (374)

Bishop, church founder, first Christian missionary to what is now Scotland where he began the conversion of the southern Picts.

According to the essentially untrustworthy life by the 12th-century Cistercian abbot Aelred of Rievaulx, Ninian was the son of a chieftain and was educated at Rome where he was consecrated bishop.

He returned traveling through Gaul where he befriend St. Martin of Tours.

More certainly Ninian then the first bishop of Galloway established his see at what subsequently became known as Whithorn, Wigtown. There he built c.397 a whitewashed stone church called Candida Casa (Latin: White House, Alglo-Saxon: Huit-aern or Whithorn) which by the 6th century was a leading Anglo-Saxon monastic centre.

The conversion of Scotland was difficult.
In Bede´s 8th-century Ecclesiastical History of the English People it is implied that Ninian had already converted some of the Picts before St. Columba of Iona began his celebrated Christianization of Scotland and church dedications to Ninian are widespread suggesting that his apostolate was not confined to Galloway and to the neighbouring kingdom of Strathclyde.

Although disputed Ninian´s apostolate seems to have been more effective among the Celts than the Picts.

It is generally agreed that he prepared the missioary foundation for S. Columba and Kentigern.

St. Ninian´s shrine at Whithorn drew many pilgrims, among them King James IV of Scotland, who was a regular visitor.

The Roman Catholic diocese of Galloway retains Candida Casa as its official name.
Ninian´s feast day is September 16.