Iona Community - Community Life and Activities

Community Life and Activities

The Iona Community is a scattered community. Its members live mainly in Scotland, England and Wales, others live in Australia, Germany, Malaysia and the United States. In May 2009, there were 270 Full Members, "around 1800" Associate Members and 1600 Friends of the Community. Among them are Presbyterians, Anglicans, Lutherans, Quakers, Roman Catholics and people of no denominational allegiance. The community has a strong commitment to ecumenism and to peace and justice issues.

The Iona Community runs three residential centres: Iona Abbey and the MacLeod Centre on the Isle of Iona, and Camas Tuath on Mull. Weeks at the centres often follow a programme related to the concerns of the Iona Community, and people are invited to come and share the life. A regular feature of a visit to Iona is a pilgrimage around the island which includes meditations on discipleship; when the pilgrims reach the disused marble quarry or the machair, the common ground where the crofters once grazed sheep, for example, they stop for reflection on work and faithfulness.

The community has its own ecumenical liturgy which is used daily in the abbey and elsewhere.

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