St Mary’s RC Cathedral, Edinburgh

‍St Wilfrid’s Way starts at this Roman Catholic cathedral, while a one-day route from Rosslyn Chapel finishes at its door.

Highlights

• National shrine of St Andrew

St Andrew’s relics can be found near the centre of Scotland’s capital city, in St Mary’s RC Cathedral in the New Town. No doubt many of the city’s commuters pass by oblivious to the presence of Scotland’s patron saint.

A Catholic church was built on this site in 1813, eventually becoming a cathedral. It is now the mother church of the archdiocese of both Edinburgh and St Andrews – a fitting place, therefore, to keep the saint’s relics. His medieval shrine was once Scotland’s foremost place of pilgrimage, in the cathedral at St Andrews until 1559.

The cathedral was partly closed when I visited during restoration work, preventing access to the relics. But the shrine chapel is now easy to find at the far end of the south aisle, on the right of the high altar.

The first of the relics is part of the saint’s shoulder, donated in 1879 by the Italian diocese of Amalfi. The second relic was donated by Pope Paul VI in 1969. A beautiful Orthodox icon of St Andrew painted in 2004 is suspended above the altar in the shrine chapel. The saint is holding a scroll on which is written, “we have found the Messiah,” in Latin, Gaelic, and English. These are the words St Andrew said to his brother St Peter on encountering Jesus for the first time (John 1:40–42).

At the opposite end of the aisle is a famous statue of St Anthony, the 4th-century monastic pioneer. The cathedral guide describes an Irish tradition of leaving the price of a loaf of bread as an offering, in supplication when something has been lost. The cathedral gives a daily donation of food to the needy, partly funded by offerings at St Anthony’s statue.

Directions

St Mary’s Roman Catholic Cathedral

61 York Place, Edinburgh EH1 3JD

www.stmaryscathedral.co.uk

W3W: hedge.impact.reader

GPS: 55.9563N 3.1877W

Edinburgh Waverley railway station 450m

The cathedral is next to the city’s John Lewis store. It is open every day.