St Brendan - First in America

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Maria
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St Brendan - First in America

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ORTHODOX CELTIC MONKS, THE FIRST IN AMERICA?
By Fr. Alexey Young

Source: Orthodox Life, No. 1, 2001, p. 33-36.

  • For centuries it was firmly believed and taught that North America was discovered by Christopher Columbus. More recently, there has been general agreement that Norsemen or Vikings were probably on this continent around 1000 A.D. "But," as the editors of National Geographic magazine point out, "perhaps it was a group of shadowy, yet very real, Irish seafaring monks who predated even the Vikings by more than four centuries." [1] Indeed, there is evidence that this may be true.

    In the twentieth century a number of scholars began to suspect that the early medieval saga known as the "Voyage of Saint Brendan the Abbot" (Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis) was not a "pious fable" at all, but the narration of an actual journey - a voyage by St. Brendan and a number of monks from Ireland to the east coast of North America, complete with accounts of what we can now identify as volcanic eruptions in Iceland, an encounter with a whale, and icebergs.

For the complete article along with fascinating pictures of carvings in stone, please visit:
http://www.oodegr.com/english/brit_celt ... merica.htm

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me a sinner.

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