Having my personal ethnic roots almost exclusively from Ireland, and having had two

appointments at the Norbertine Abbey of the Holy Trinity (no longer in existence) outside the

town of Ballyjamesduff in County Cavan, I found Connie Marshner’s work an engaging read. I

am genuinely pleased to commend it to anyone interested in Irish Ecclesiastical History, in the

connection of the Christian East with Ireland, or in the beauty of the Irish literary mind,

imagination and soul.

I found the work to be thoroughly researched, with an extensive and most informative

bibliography. The conclusions reached are based on facts emerging from thorough research.

Certainly one is left with no doubt at all about the central thesis of the work, the irrefutable fact

of the Eastern roots of Irish Christianity.

While Connie Marshner indicates which direction further research might profitably take, she has

made a major contribution to the bring the question to a juncture from which further research

may go forward. Her style of writing is engaging for the reader. I found it hard to put her work

aside as I returned to monastic observance and pastoral apostolate.

This short work deserves a wide readership!

This is the best book on the history of true “Celtic Christianity” I have ever read. No other work

so clearly explains the previously missing links that connect early Christian Ireland with the

Levantine birthplace of the Faith. In addition to its reverent use of older sources, it is filled with

information on the latest scholarship and discoveries which illuminate the Gaelic world’s eastern

patrimony. With an Ireland that today is so secularized and anglicized, I believe Connie

Marshner’s Monastery and High Cross holds the key to an authentically Catholic revitalization of

the Church in Ireland, Scotland, and anywhere on earth the descendants of the Gaelic people live

today.

Early Christian Ireland is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. All the more

mysterious are its connections with monks in remotest Egypt. This book will transport you to a

fascinating place you never knew existed. You will love every blessed page.

This work does us a great service. Connie Marshner’s work is built upon the first discovery of

archaeological evidence of a direct relationship between Early Christian Ireland and Egypt in the

discovery of the Faddan More Psalter in 2006. Inspired by this discovery, Marshner, a Melkite

Catholic of Irish descent, marshals a wide variety of earlier texts that underline the connections

between early Christian Ireland and the Christian East in general and Egypt in particular.

In Monastery and High Cross, Marshner gives us a zesty and intriguing portrait of Irish

Christianity as it was before the Romans came. It was a faith that traveled over well-established

trade routes, reaching Egypt, Constantinople, and points further east, and returning over land and

sea to the far-west land of Ireland. In the last fifty years, the archeological evidence for this has

blossomed, making this a fascinating story. 

A thoroughly Catholic work. Marshner reminds us of the truly universal nature of our

faith and replenishes our forgotten roots. Her book should serve as a bridge from East to

West and across the ages. I can think of no nation more in need of this reminder than

Ireland. Our story is even richer than many of us know, but in Mrs. Marshner we have a

reliable storyteller and an honest historian. She unveils the universal through the

particular, as a good Christian scholar should. It’s a peculiar irony that a daughter of the

Irish diaspora is the one who can bring us home again.

Half a century ago I recall a discussion in our Christian Archaeology class concerning a

particular ancient fresco. Was it a depiction of The Last Supper ? Was it a Refrigerium Mercy

Meal ? Was it a Philosopher’s Symposium? The professor, the late Rev. Johannes Quasten,

finally cautioned the class: “Gentlemen, do not impose 20th century questions on 3rd century

Christians.” The statement was an eye-opener. How often we underestimate the expansive cross-

fertilization of the early Christian world. 

Connie’s book will help us open our eyes and our minds.