Editor’s Note: EWTN News In Depth correspondent Colm Flynn recently traveled to Bobbio, Italy, to share some amazing facts about an Irish saint. Below is an adapted transcribed report, printed with permission. 

Nestled in the Trebbia Valley, the town of Bobbio retains much of its medieval character, with narrow cobblestone streets, stone buildings and a number of historical landmarks. 

But what the town is most famous for is its association with St. Columbanus. 

In the middle of the town is the Abbey of Bobbio, founded by the Irish monk in 614 A.D.; and under the chapel in the crypt is Columbanus’ grave, where a group of Colombian brothers, priests, nuns and pilgrims have come together to celebrate Mass and remember the life of their founding saint.

Who was this Irish saint who established monasteries throughout Europe and is credited by some as being one of the inspirations behind the founding of the European Union? 

Damian Bracken, senior lecturer at the school of history at University College Cork, explained that St. Columbanus “was an Irish monk who left Ireland probably around the year 590-591, when he was of comfortable middle age. He could have coasted into a comfortable retirement, but he packed it all in and he journeyed off into what was then the unknown.”

Columbanus went on an epic journey across the continent at a time of deep division in Europe and also in the Catholic Church. He wanted to promote unity and so wrote to people at the highest levels in the Church and in society, demanding a higher standard of leadership. He even wrote to the Pope. 

He went to France, where he established three monasteries, and then headed south.

“And he works his way down through Central Europe into what’s now Switzerland,” Bracken elaborated. “He crosses the Alps in about 612, and he arrives in this part of the world; and he writes his last letter in 613, his masterpiece.” 

The monasteries he established became beacons of monastic life and learning. 

“So what he does is, he establishes three monasteries in the mountains in what we know call France; and this is his last foundation, Bobbio,” Bracken said. “So we know of four for definite, but his legacy is contained in his monastic rule; he left a blueprint on how to run a monastery in his monastic rule. And of course these monasteries produce graduates, and they go on to found other monasteries. They bring Columbanus’ message with them. So a century after he dies, across Western Europe, there are about a 100 monasteries which have been influenced by his ideas.” 

When he arrived here in Bobbio, he established his final monastery, which quickly became one of the most important monastic centers in medieval Europe. It had a vast library, with manuscripts preserved from the Dark Ages. 

“It becomes a very important center of learning for this whole region in Northern Italy. It has a very significant library, is stocked with books; some of the manuscripts coming from Ireland — some of the earliest surviving Irish manuscripts,” Bracken said.

He may have been heading for Rome but never left Bobbio and died here in 615 A.D.

“What happens here after Columbanus dies is his monks are anxious to secure his legacy, so they go to Rome; and the Pope of the time says this monastery can continue in existence without any outside interference; so it’s given a free reign to grow and to develop,” Bracken continued. “And this monastery sets down a marker for the future because in troubled times — and Europe was to go through centuries of troubled times — the fixed centers, the centers of stability were monasteries; so this monastery was absolutely very, very important.”

Franciscan Father Mícheál Mac Craith has studied the life of St. Columbanus, impressed by his deep desire for a united Europe. 

“Columbanus is the first person we know in history that used the phrase totius Europae — ‘all Europe’; and he wrote it on two occasions: one in a letter to Pope Boniface and another in a letter to Gregory the Great, one in the year 600, one in the year 613; and in another letter where he didn't use the term ‘all of Europe,’ but he said whether we are Franks or British or Irish or others, we are all one people under God,” Father Mac Craith explained, adding of the legacy, “1,400 years of intrepid faith, of pastoral care, of putting an end to violence and creating peace among diverse peoples — that you cannot have a united Europe and deny its Christian roots.”

Robert Schuman, the founder of the European Union, used the legacy of St. Columbanus as one of his inspirations for establishing the union; and because of that, an exhibition was unveiled in Bobbio marking the birth of Europe.

Helping to launch the exhibit was Frances Collins, the Irish ambassador to the Holy See.

“For the Irish government, last year, we celebrated 50 years of Ireland’s membership of the European Union. But, of course, our legacy and our identification with Europe goes back much further. And St. Columbanus is evident of that, and that’s why we wanted to acknowledge that long association.”

“St. Columbanus, of course, was the first to speak of and use the phrase of ‘all of Europe.’ And when Robert Schuman was meeting in Luxeuil in 1950, he identified St. Columbanus as the patron saint of European unity,” Collins added, “so it’s very much something that we in Ireland should be proud of — and as the Irish government we are proud of.”

To mark 25 years of Columbanus Day, a special dinner is held for the pilgrims, where the music, the food and the wine is flowing. Many of the pilgrims have been walking for days to get here, following in the footsteps of St. Columbanus. 

Said one female pilgrim, “I think one of my main attractions to Columbanus is his prayerful life; and reading his sermons and his letters, I just find it absolutely amazing the experience that he had of God.”