On Friday 15th November the Mayor of North Down, Cllr Andrew Muir, will join with Mayors and dignitaries from Italy and France, along with international and local Church and Cultural bodies, in signing up to the establishment of an association to create an European Cultural route, “The Columban Way”, based on the life and travels of both Bangor, and central Europe’s most famous Saint, Columbanus.
The signing will take place in Bangor Town Hall and will see the start of a process that over the next number of months will develop an application to be presented to the European Cultural Committee in Luxembourg that will see the union formally recognised as an official European Cultural Route.
The initial route is to comprise of Bangor, Luxeuil-les-Bains (France) and Bobbio (Italy) and will recognise the influence of Columbanus’ work within central Europe and is to be formally established by 2015, the year that will mark the 1400th anniversary of the passing of St Columbanus. This anniversary year one that will be marked with events throughout the European countries he was influential in.
After the initial route is formed it is envisaged that it will then expand to take in the additional countries of Switzerland, Austria and Germany where Columbanus also left his mark through the establishment of monasteries and settlements.
Mayor of North Down, Cllr Andrew Muir; “I am delighted to be welcoming my counterparts from Italy and France to Bangor for this occasion. Not only did Columbanus play a pivotal role in the spread of Christianity in mainland Europe but his importance both here and in Europe has been recognised in that he was the first person to use the term “European”, was notably our first “man of Letters”, famous for his poetry, and was the first Irish man of whom a biography was written, by fellow Monk, Jonas. The creation of this route will be a fitting testimony on a European scale to the man and his work”.
His importance to the Church and European Christianity as a whole is also none more so evident by the formal proposal in 2012 to the Vatican to see St Columbanus bestowed with a Patronage of Europe title to mark the anniversary in 2015.
The signing of the Cultural Route agreement will take place in Bangor Town Hall at 4pm on Friday 15th November 2013.