Happy St. Patrick’s Season — Celtic Ministry Update and Special Commemoration
Restoration of Western Christian Civilization
Happy St. Patrick’s season!
MINISTRY UPDATE and exciting Liturgical Commemoration
What an amazing season this is for celebrating our Celtic heritage of Christendom. We have two full weekends of parades and public festivities before us, and yesterday, on the Feast of Saint Patrick itself, the day was especially action-packed — filled with prayer, ministry work, and collaboration with brothers from Ireland. It was a blessed and encouraging day, and it reminded us again that Saint Patrick’s legacy is not a relic of the past, but part of a living work that still calls us forward.
I would also ask your prayers for one ministry effort in particular. We are helping work toward the founding of a new Celtic Church mission in Switzerland. This is a serious missionary effort and there is real financial need if it is to succeed. If you know anyone who may wish to help, please do let us know. This is not only about preserving Celtic heritage, but about reaching our lost Western European brothers and sisters with the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. As an ethnic Orthodox communion, we often find ourselves in minority status in most countries of the world, yet we are not afforded the minority protections and provisions commonly granted to others. Please keep this, and our other missions across the West (and East) in your prayers.
Below I am sharing this newsletter in two parts: first, a Saint Patrick emphasis for Christendom and the early monastic and missionary influence of the Celtic Church; and second, a commemoration with Saint Patrick’s Breastplate and a concluding prayer.
Saint Patrick must not be treated as though he appeared in an empty land or in a spiritual vacuum. One of the great mistakes of modern retellings is to flatten the story and act as though Ireland had no earlier sacred foundations worth mentioning. In reality, the traditions of Ireland and Britain preserve a much older heritage, and Patrick’s greatness shines all the more when understood as part of a broader apostolic and early Christian stream. For that reason, one of the companion articles for this season is “Jeremiah in Ireland: Proof from the Bible and the Irish Annals,” which may be read here in full: https://celticorthodoxy.com/2026/03/jeremiah-in-ireland-proof-from-the-bible-and-the-irish-annals/
Alongside that, I also strongly recommend our review of MacManus’ work, “Story of the Irish Race: Great Book Review from the British Israel Book Club,” which highlights the older and stronger historical tradition concerning the Irish people, including the view that the founder of the Milesian Gaels was Prince Gadelius with Moses in the wilderness, and that ancient Ireland preserved traditions of Saint James the Apostle in Ireland as well as other first- and second-century saints. That article is here: https://celticorthodoxy.com/2025/02/story-of-the-irish-race-great-book-review-from-the-british-israel-book-club/
We are tired of the watered-down versions. We want to help wake people up to the scale of what was actually taking place in these lands. Patrick was not merely a symbolic missionary figure dressed in green for modern celebrations. He was a champion of Christendom, a great consolidator of the Celtic Church, and a spiritual warrior whose witness helped gather, strengthen, and order Christian life across Ireland and far beyond it.
That broader context includes those who went before him. We already have an important companion article titled “First Century Irish Saints in Glory,” which presents dozens of early Irish church leaders before Saint Patrick and helps situate his mission within a wider sacred history. That article is here: https://www.watchman.report/p/1st-century-irish-saints-in-glory
For a longer listing and further discussion of the earliest Irish saints and church leaders before Patrick, you may consult that article directly, or inquire with us at info@st-andrewsocc.org.
Actual SEAL of Glastonbury Abbey (Britain) with St Patrick as an early Abbot (Irish Celtic Culdee priesthood):
Among the names and traditions often discussed in this earlier stream are Conall Cernach, remembered in Irish tradition as a great warrior of the Red Branch and, in some accounts, one converted at Jerusalem by Christ Himself; Conor Mac Nessa, associated in some traditions with sending his druids to Glastonbury to meet Joseph of Arimathea; Saint Cathaldus, linked with Irish missionary influence abroad; Saint Abben; King Donald; King Cratilinth; Saint Heber or Iber; and others whose witness or memory shows that the Christian story in these lands was far richer and earlier than many now assume. Later historical witnesses such as Irenaeus, Tertullian, Eusebius, and Chrysostom also stand as important testimony to the spread of Christianity among the Celtic nations and the British Isles.
Saint Patrick’s greatness, then, is not reduced by mentioning those who came before him. Rather, it is magnified, because he appears not as an isolated figure but as a mighty consolidator of Christendom in the West. Through him, what had been more scattered and local became more visibly ordered, rooted, and enduring. Armagh, the coarbs of Patrick, and the leadership stream that proceeded from that see became central to the Irish Church. In our own Culdee understanding, this was not merely a matter of later bureaucratic hierarchy, but of spiritual fatherhood, ordered communities, and the school-church life that shaped both clergy and people.
The Culdees, or Céle Dé — the Servants of God — carried forward this life of prayer, discipline, learning, and missionary witness. Their traditions influenced far more than Ireland alone. The monastic and missionary movement associated with the Celtic Church extended across Europe, and our own articles continue tracing this influence into major regions and centers. For example, see “The Celtic Church in Kiev: Culdees, Chrodegang, and the Continental Expansion”: https://celticorthodoxy.com/2025/04/celtic-church-kiev-europe/ and “The Guelph Dynasty and the Enduring Protection of the Celtic Church of Columbanus”: https://celticorthodoxy.com/2025/04/guelph-german-celtic-church/
For a wider overview of early Celtic leadership across Europe and many of the distinctive practices of the Celtic Church, see also: “The Celtic Church in Britain” by Leslie Hardinge: https://celticorthodoxy.com/2015/11/the-celtic-church-in-britain-by-leslie-hardinge/
This wider continental story also requires mentioning Chrodegang clearly. He was Chamberlain and court bishop to Charles Martel, and stands as a very important figure in the transition by which earlier monastic and ecclesiastical patterns were gathered, regularized, and extended in Western Christendom. He belongs in this conversation because the shaping of Christian order on the continent did not happen in a vacuum, but in dialogue with older missionary and monastic foundations, many of them Irish and Celtic.
At the same time, the Irish Church maintained a distinctive identity. It respected Rome, corresponded with Rome, and worked with Rome where possible, yet it also preserved its own patterns and often addressed the Roman bishop more as a brother bishop than as an unquestioned earthly superior in every matter. Over time, later Benedictine and Roman structures built upon many of these earlier Celtic foundations. Our own readers can find more on our identity and mission here: “About Us — The Orthodox Church of the Culdees”: https://celticorthodoxy.com/2017/05/about-us-celtic-orthodox-church-culdees/ and “A Short History of the Orthodox Church of the Culdees, and Our Reestablishment”: https://celticorthodoxy.com/2017/05/short-history-orthodox-church-of-the-culdees/
We also continue to honor some of the great fathers of this wider stream, including Saint Gall and Saint Othmar, whose remembrance remains important in our own work: https://celticorthodoxy.com/2019/12/honoring-of-st-gall-and-st-othmar-in-the-orthodox-church-of-the-culdees/
Another important visual centerpiece for this season’s message will be the image of Saint Patrick on the official seals of Glastonbury Abbey. This deserves emphasis. The common and recognized seals of the Abbey, in both church and secular record, bear witness to a much stronger Glastonbury connection than many modern simplified tellings would admit. I will be placing that image prominently as one of the main pieces of artwork in this commemoration.
And so, in celebration of Saint Patrick’s season, and in honor of his role as Apostle of Ireland, champion of Christendom, and spiritual conqueror who drove out the serpents of error and darkness, we now turn to prayer.
Saint Patrick’s Breastplate
I bind unto myself today
the strong Name of the Trinity,
by invocation of the same,
the Three in One, and One in Three.
I bind this day to me for ever,
by power of faith, Christ’s Incarnation;
His baptism in the Jordan river;
His death on Cross for my salvation;
His bursting from the spiced tomb;
His riding up the heavenly way;
His coming at the day of doom;
I bind unto myself today.
I bind unto myself the power
of the great love of Cherubim;
the sweet “Well done” in judgment hour;
the service of the Seraphim;
confessors’ faith, Apostles’ word,
the Patriarchs’ prayers, the Prophets’ scrolls;
all good deeds done unto the Lord,
and purity of virgin souls.
I bind unto myself today
the virtues of the star-lit heaven,
the glorious sun’s life-giving ray,
the whiteness of the moon at even,
the flashing of the lightning free,
the whirling wind’s tempestuous shocks,
the stable earth, the deep salt sea
around the old eternal rocks.
I bind unto myself today
the power of God to hold and lead,
His eye to watch, His might to stay,
His ear to hearken to my need;
the wisdom of my God to teach,
His hand to guide, His shield to ward;
the word of God to give me speech,
His heavenly host to be my guard.
Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me.
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.
I bind unto myself the Name,
the strong Name of the Trinity,
by invocation of the same,
the Three in One, and One in Three,
of Whom all nature hath creation,
eternal Father, Spirit, Word:
praise to the Lord of my salvation,
salvation is of Christ the Lord.
Commemoration of Saint Patrick
The commemoration of Saint Patrick, Apostle and Father of Ireland, chief bishop and teacher of the Gaels, who was chosen of God to bring the light of Christ to that land, and by the power of the Gospel drove out the serpents of error and darkness.
According to the ancient tradition of the Irish Church, he founded many churches, ordained bishops and clergy in great number, and baptized multitudes into the faith of Christ, establishing the Church throughout Ireland.
O Lord God Almighty, Who didst call Thy servant Patrick from captivity unto apostleship, and didst make him a shepherd of souls and a light to the nations, grant that we, remembering his holy life and mighty labors, may follow his faith, imitate his zeal, and remain steadfast in Thy truth.
And we give Thee thanks, O Lord, for glorifying Thy servant Patrick among the great saints and apostles of Thy Church, and for making his memory a blessing among the faithful.
Remember also, O Lord, all Thy faithful servants who have gone before us in the sign of faith, and grant unto them rest in the place of light and peace.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord, to Whom with Thee and the Holy Ghost be all glory, now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen.
The Holy Patrick, Apostle of Western Christendom, praises God with us,
As we continue through this season, may this be more than a heritage observance. May it be an awakening. May it be a renewal of courage, memory, missionary zeal, and holy resolve. May we not be content with diluted histories or sentimental retellings, but rejoice in the real scale of what God accomplished through Saint Patrick and through the long line of saints who went before and after him.
Happy St. Patrick’s season once again.
In Christ and in the fellowship of the saints,
+Rev Dr Stephen M.K. Brunswick, ThD, PhD
Primace at St Andrew’s OCC
Phone: +1 (866) 477-6811
Email: info@st-andrewsocc.org
Web: https://St-AndrewsOCC.org
Post: St Andrew’s PO Box 59, Nevada, MO 64772 USA
Presiding Bishop, AOCC Benelux (2015-Present)
Primace, Orthodox Church of the Culdees (2009-Present)
Pastor, TCA WW (2001-Present)
+ Oremus pro invicem +