Catholic Fort Augustus

397 Christianity brought to the present Scotland by St Ninian who is thought to have been a British bishop who was educated in Rome and sent to preach the Gospel to the Picts.
563 St Columba reinforced Christianity coming from Ireland and founding a Monastery in Iona
It is said that the first church in the present Fort Augustus was build in honor of thereafter or by Saint Cummin, a monk from Iona. Thereafter the name of the village was Cill Chuimein, which means Church of Saint Cummein.
1125 Diocese of Aberdeen is created, lasts until 1577. Created again in 1878.
1560 The Reformation: oppression of Catholics, deaths of priests. Scotland became a Protestant nation under the leadership of John Knox. Church of Scotland declared the national church. Catholicism was outlawed.
1715 First Jacobite Rising against the Hanoverian government in London. After the failure of the rising the village is renamed Fort Augustus.
1716 The original Fort was constructed on the site of the present – day Lovat Arms
1729 General Wade builds a larger fort on the shore of Loch Ness
1745 Jacobite Rising.
1746 Battle of Culloden. This battle finally crushes all Jacobite resistance.
1794 Catholic Relief Act; many freedoms restored to Catholics. A Catholic Regiment in the British Army was created.
1842 St Peter’s Church and house for the priest was built on the outskirts of Fort Augustus. Some people travelled thirty miles to get Mass. This Church was in use until 1887. The building was later known as the Convent since it was occupied for some years by a community of Benedictine Nuns.
1876 Larger Fort converted into Saint Benedict’s Monastery, founded from the Benedictine Abbey in Ratisbon, Germany. Monastery Church under the name of St Benedict’s.
1891 St Scholastica’s Convent was founded. The Convent closed April 1921. The nuns moved to Holme Eden Abbey Cumbria.
1878 The Roman Catholic ecclesiastical hierarchy was restored to Scotland. since Catholicism was outlawed by the Reformation Parliament of 1560
1993 The Abbey School is finally closed
1998 The Abbey is closed / At closure time there were only 8 monks. Because the parish in Fort Augustus, prior to the foundation of the Abbey was dedicated to St. Peter and the Abbey to St Benedict, Bishop Conti of Aberdeen decided that the restored parish would combine the names of the two saints. Fort Augustus belongs to the Aberdeen Diocese which has about 20 thousand faithful (that is 6.7% of the population and 43 parishes. (Source: www.catholic-hierarchy.org Data from the census in 2015). In the Aberdeen Diocese in August 2019 there were working 32 active priests and 14 of them had been invited from outside the Diocese.