Our History | Stevenston High Kirk

Our History

We are part of the national Church of Scotland which is the largest of the Presbyterian denominations in Scotland. The High Kirk would therefore be an evangelical church in the Reformed and Presbyterian traditions.

The Church of Scotland has been described as “Reformed and Presbyterian, national but free” - that in a nutshell is the modern Church of Scotland. How it grew into its present shape is a story over 1500 years old...

HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND

The early years

As long ago as about 400AD St Ninian began the first large-scale Christian mission to Scotland from Whithorn in the far south-west, converting many Pictish people to the new faith, long before Scot-land was a single country.

The great heroic figure of the early story is St Columba, the Irish prince-in-exile who crossed to the island of Iona off the west coast of Scotland later in the sixth century. He established a community of monks who spread the Gospel far and wide through Scotland and the north of England.

The Middle Ages

In the centuries that followed, as Scotland began to find its identity as a nation, and hundreds of years of tension with her English neighbours to the South unfolded, the Church adopted the Roman - not Celtic - practices of work and worship. Saintly figures like Queen Margaret encouraged and supported its work and influence, and the papacy allowed Scot-land to be independent of England for church purposes.

Reformation

The Reformation in Scotland came to its head in the 1560s, and was modelled on John Calvin's Geneva. His pupil John Knox is famous for head-to-head debates with Mary, Queen of Scots, the Catholic Queen who returned from France and tried to remain loyal to the Roman system.

By the end of the 16th century, the Protestant Church of Scotland had developed into a Presbyterian Church, with a system of courts (today General Assembly, presbytery and Kirk Session), and a strong tradition of preaching and Scriptural emphasis.

Covenanters

Anyone reading Scottish history comes to realise what a key player the Church of Scotland has been since it was reformed in the 16th century. It was not all plain sailing from then on, however, especially after the crowns of Scotland and England were united in 1603. Attempts by Charles I and Charles II to control the Kirk (to use the Scots term) met with protest, including the signing of the National Covenant at Greyfriars Church in Edinburgh in 1638.

The story of the Covenanters is the story of a bitter struggle for civil and religious freedom in Scotland. They were willing to sacrifice their property, their careers, and even their lives for the sake of the gospel in Scotland. These Covenanters continued to proclaim the faith, even holding open-air services.

National Church

The succession of William and Mary to the throne in 1688 changed the situation, and the Revolution Settlement of 1690 finally established the reformed, presbyterian Church as the national Church of Scotland. The monarch even today has a special relationship with the Church of Scotland and renews that every year with a representative of the monarch attending the General Assembly.

Disruption and reunion

Controversy and division were common in the Church between 1750 and 1850, when there was considerable concern about the Church's relations with the State, particularly over intervention in the appointment of ministers. The largest division was the Disruption of 1843 - a major split which saw about one third of the Kirk break away to form what came to be the Free Kirk.

The next 90 years were spent removing the causes of division, and reuniting several churches, all of them Presbyterian, so that today the Church of Scotland is the largest Protestant church in the country, with a number of small churches alongside it, representing those who chose not to find their way into the union process.

The Church of Scotland today!

That process of re-union gave the Church of Scotland an opportunity to resolve once and for all how it wanted to govern itself and how it wanted to relate to the state. Little remains of the Church's previous establishment, but she retains a strong sense of a national responsibility to bring Christ's Gospel to the whole of Scotland. She is free, therefore, from civil interference in spiritual matters. In a millennium and a half, the Church has been at different times a tiny, radical outside force, a revolutionary movement, a strand of government and a partner in civil society. It has been supportive and critical, protective and destructive, peacemaker and warrior.

Today the Church of Scotland lives in the creative tension of serving a nation, offering the ordinances of religion and also providing a prophetic Gospel voice through parish ministry and national engagement of many kinds.