Cross will be reminder of two millennia of monks

The new Papa Stronsay Cross

This is the cross, pictured left, that will stand as a permanent reminder of and memorial to the first two millennia of Celtic and Viking monks in Orkney.

The diagram shows the Celtic cross erected on Papa Stronsay – Golgotha Monastery Island as it is known to the resident monks, the Transalpine Redemptorists – at the end of August.

The eight foot grey granite cross is being cut by Fyfe Memorial in Aberdeen and will be engraved with the Papa Stronsay cross, which is pictured alongside the cross, sandblasted into its crossbars.

The motif known as the Papa Stronsay Cross that is displayed on the new cross erected by the island monks

Father Michael Mary explained: “The cross is a memorial to the monks and hermits of the first two millennia who found on nearly every Orkney isle their “Desert in the pathless sea” (St Adaman’s life of St Columba speaking of monks coming to Orkney).”

He continued: “We are particularly proud to be living on Papa Stronsay where the monastic life did indeed cover the first two millennia of Celtic and Viking monks, both groups praying the psalms and celebrating the Mass in the Latin tongue which we continue in our daily Latin Masses.”