St Columba Gaelic Church, Glasgow
Fàilte gu Eaglais Ghàidhlig Chaluim Chille, Glaschu
WE WELCOME YOU TO OUR CHURCH
A Bit About Us
St. Columba Gaelic Church is steeped in the culture and history of the Scottish Highlands and its people. Over the years, many from the Highlands and Islands have followed the road to Glasgow to settle in the city. St Columba has always offered them a spiritual home from home.
The congregation meets at Blawarthill Church in Scotstoun, following the decision to sell our property in St Vincent Street. Visitors and new members are always welcome.
At the reception after our Linkage Service. L to R: Dr S. Grant Barclay, Presbytery Clerk, Rev. Hilary McDougall, Moderator,
Rev. G. Melvyn Wood, Minister and Very Rev. Dr. Angus Morrison, Preacher.
We are Presbyterians - part of the Reformed Church
The Church of Scotland is the Mother Church of Presbyterians world-wide. We trace our traditions back to the European Reformation of the 16th Century. Scottish Presbyterianism was influenced primarily by John Calvin of Geneva, and his pupil John Knox, who led the Scottish Reformation of 1560. We are governed by Church courts - the General Assembly, the Presbytery and the Kirk Session. Ministers and Elders have equal status in these courts, each of which is chaired by a Moderator, who can be a Minister, Deacon or Elder. The local Kirk Session is moderated by the incumbent Minister. Below are pictures of our Locum Graham Morrison who served us for nearly ten years, and our most recently ordained Elders.
.jpg)
Some Stories about us
The Big Footprint walk - Holy Saturday 2019
The story of the returned Bible
Clerk to the Board, Donald Mackechnie was flabbergasted when a stranger turned up at his Glasgow home with the pocket sized book that belonged to his grandmother’s great-grandfather.
Donald said he was “amazed” that the Bible, which has a brass clasp and bears the name Alexander MacDonald of Inverness and dated January 1, 1866, had returned to the family.
It is a mystery how the book, which had a four-leaf clover tucked within its pages, came into the possession of an amateur Bible collector from Cleveland, Ohio in the USA.
In 2001, he gifted it to a business associate called Marshall Whitehead II who took it home and promptly forgot about it until May of this year when he was moving house.
Noting the name of the original owner, the American decided to try and track down the descendants of Mr MacDonald, who was born in Inverness in 1825 and worked as a ship master, wine merchant and grocer.
He contacted Highland Council in Inverness which put him in touch with Anne Fraser, a historian at Highland Archive Centre, who created a MacDonald family tree.
Armed with this information, Mr Whitehead used social media to track down Mr Mackechnie’s daughter Mairi in Glasgow who alerted her Islay-raised father to the astonishing find.
Alistair Begg, a Pastor at Mr Whitehead’s church in Ohio who is originally from Glasgow, was visiting relatives in the city last month, and hand delivered the Bible to the native Gaelic speaker's home.
Recalling the moment he was given the Bible, Mr Mackechnie, clerk to the board at St Columba Gaelic Church of Scotland in Glasgow, said: “There was a knock on the door one day and this chap was standing there.
“I almost fell on the floor when he explained what he was giving me. “I could not believe it, it was such a shock and a surprise.
“The whole family are delighted and over the moon to receive his previously unheard of family heirloom.
“It does not even enter your head that this kind of thing could ever happen – it is quite amazing.”
Mr Mackechnie, a retired mechanical design draftsman, said the story of the Bible’s return to Scotland was “fascinating and shows there are still kind people in the world.”
Alexander MacDonald, a member of St Columba High Church of Scotland in Inverness which has since closed, died in 1881, and is buried in the city’s Tomnahurich Cemetery.
His son Kenneth MacDonald was a lawyer and the Town Clerk of Inverness for nearly 40 years until his death in 1921. Alexander MacDonald worked as a ship master, wine merchant and grocer.
Mr Whitehead, who chose the book from a collection of more than 100, said he believed it was not a coincidence that it had been returned to the family of the original owner.
“Our Lord does move in mysterious ways,” he added.
“I am very pleased that this keepsake treasure of the MacDonald family, located in Cleveland, Ohio was safely returned to Mr MacDonald's native homeland.
“It would not have happened if it had not been for the tireless effort of Anne Fraser and the kind gracious act of my senior Pastor, Alistair Begg.
“Now that Mr MacDonald's Bible is in his family's hand, I believe that there is a purpose that God has for allowing it to return safely to his family.”
From "News & Events", C of S website, 2017