John the Divine has entrusted his name to many fi ne churches—but few enjoy a more beautiful setting than St John’s Episcopal Church at Ballachulish. Protected from the prevailing wind by Meall a’ Chaolais, an outlier of the magnifi cent Beinn a’ Bheithir horseshoe, the church looks out over Loch Leven, across to the Pap and the mouth of Glencoe and away to the distant Mamores. It is a place enfolded in loveliness and steeped in history. There are many who hold to the view that the Scottish Episcopal Church is the true church of Scotland, evolving, as it has, from the Celtic Church of Columba and, before him, of Saint Regulus, the shipwrecked guardian of our Patron Saint’s relics. They may have a point.

The Church of Scotland had its birth in Geneva and Germany, when the teachings of John Calvin and Martin Luther convinced many that reform was necessary. Amongst their disciples was John Knox who, in 16th century Scotland, preached with fi re – and often a good measure of brimstone – against the worst excesses of the Roman Church of the time. Under his leadership, Episcopacy was proscribed, though many believe it was clearly the intention of the first reformers to continue the ancient ecclesiastical order of bishops, priests and deacons. The Episcopal Church was not the Church of Rome, though.

For a thousand years before the Reformation, she acted independently of the Vatican, sent out missionaries without seeking papal consent and cut her priests’ hair to suit herself. Despite Knox, the Church was restored in the 17th century. By 1745 she had 200 priests but, after the catastrophic events at Drummossie the following year, Penal Law was brought in, chapels were burned down and clergy imprisoned. The priests that survived could only minister to four people at a time. Many Episcopal clergy had been involved in the Earl of Mar’s Rising thirty years before and over 70% of Jacobite troops at Culloden were Episcopalian.

Repercussions

The repercussions felt in the Highlands after Culloden were sorely inflicted on Jacobite strongholds like Ballachulish and Appin. Lessons had to be taught and, if an innocent man went to the gallows, it was no more than he deserved, being of the wrong name and the wrong faith. On the 8th November, 1752, on a day of gales and torrential rain, James Stewart of Acharn, forever remembered as Seumas a’ Ghlinne, climbed the scaffold on Cnap a’ Chaolais. Before the noose tightened, he declared he died a true member of the Episcopal Church and knelt in prayer. ‘False witnesses rose; to my charge things I not knew they laid. They, to the spoiling of my soul. me ill for good repaid.’ Psalm 35 is, to this day in the Highlands, known as Salm Sheumais a’ Ghlinne. There was no church building at Ballachulish in the days of James of the Glen.

To celebrate Holy Communion, he and his family would have gathered at one of the carefully positioned hollows in the district where guards were posted to keep lookout towards the road to Fort William, which housed a Hanoverian garrison. Itinerant catechists or lay preachers, often clad in grey suits to avoid detection, ministered to the spiritual needs of the people throughout the year, with priests attending for festivals.

The Diocese of Argyll

Appin, Duror and Ballachulish belonged to the Diocese of Argyll and the Isles, having been ceded from the See of Dunkeld in the 13th century, but it was the Bishop of Ross who made the biggest impact on the faithful of North Argyll. Whilst on one of his episcopal tours of the Highlands, he received an impassioned letter from John Stewart of Ballachulish House inviting him to come to the west to confirm, baptise and ‘give great joy and comfort to many a poor creature.’ To his credit, the Bishop undertook what was an arduous journey by chaise and horses with little in the way of provisions beyond Fort Augustus. It took two days for his party to reach Ballachulish. After a day resting, he was escorted to Camas a’ Ghuisachan (the bay of the pine trees) where Stewart of Ballachulish had offered his storehouse as a chapel, and there, over the next three days, he baptised almost 80 souls and confirmed over 400.

His journals record that nearly every farm and clachan in Appin and Nether Lochaber was represented and that the majority of the population, including the Stewarts of Appin, the Camerons and the MacDonalds of Glencoe, all belonged to the Episcopalian Church. At Communion, a silver chalice and paten were used. On the chalice was inscribed ‘Parish of Appin 1723’. From it, on the field at Culloden, the Viaticum or Eucharist for those facing death had been received. The storehouse continued in use as a church until 1842 when St John’s Church was built adjacent to it. Her architect was Oban-based Peter MacNab, with David MacIntosh overseeing the addition of a chancel some 40 years later.

Its first incumbent was James Paterson. A new school and teacher’s house were built under the charge of Alexander Chinnery- Haldane, whose family owned Ballachulish Estate and who went on to become the Bishop of Argyll and the Isles. The congregation continued to grow, prompting Bishop Ewing, writing in 1871, to comment, ‘we had the most crowded church on Sunday I ever saw at Ballachulish – many could not get in. I dare say a thousand people were present.’ Today, the faithful number barely 30.

Unfinished

But St John’s is not fi nished yet. An enthusiastic group is working to keep this special church alive. The stones in the graveyard, many carved for their own use by men who toiled in the slate quarry, feature beautiful images of thistles and wild flowers. They remember past generations of MacInneses and MacColls, Livingstones and MacKenzies, and many come from the four corners to look for them. One such visitor, a minister from Dundee, had been searching for the grave of his great grandfather – a merchant of Laroch named Kenneth MacKenzie – and had all but given up. He didn’t know that when the chancel had been added, many graves had been concealed under the extension.

He was taken inside the church where first the carpet was pulled back then a trap door was lifted to reveal the grave he had spent twenty years looking for. There is now a brass plate on the fl oor in front of the altar to commemorate his ancestor. Shinty players and Gaelic singers, crofters and quarrymen, the great and the humble lie side by side in the graveyard. So too does one of the three Ballachulish ‘Argylls’ who evaded re-capture during the Second World War by speaking Gaelic and convincing the Germans they were Russian. St. John’s is a beautiful church. She deserves to continue as a place of worship for the faithful and a sanctuary of peace for the world-weary. Spend some time with her when next you’re passing.

FIELD FACTS

The Diocese of Argyll and the Isles. Tel: 01855 811 473 www.st-johnschurch- ballachulish. com