Exterior view of St Boniface - photograph by Douglas Hourston
St Boniface Kirk
Now restored , this is a most important ecclesiastic site dating back to the 8th century. It stands above the rocky shore towards the north west, has Iron Age and Pictish remains nearby, dating from the 6th century BC to 12th century AD. A Norse hog-back gravestone and two Early Christian cross-slabs found in the Kirk yard all combine to indicate a site of great significance.
St Boniface (675 to 754 AD) himself was a famous teacher and missionary, working among the heathens of Friesia and Germany, becoming a bishop in 722 AD and archbishop in 732 AD. He established many new churches, monasteries and bishoprics before being murdered in 754 AD.
The Pictish King Nechtan on his conversion to the Roman Church around 715 AD formed an alliance with the kingdom of Northumbria and invited the clergy to establish a well ordered Christian mission through his domain. The site of many of the churches and monasteries was on or near the sites of brochs, iron age fortified towers, indicating an important place of power. This is the case with St Boniface Kirk.
As St Boniface met his fate whilst the mission to convert the Picts was spreading its network of churches and monasteries in the north, to Orkney and Shetland, it is most likely that the church built on Papay was dedicated to him at this time.
St Boniface Kirk was the only church in Orkney, apart from St Magnus Cathedral, to survive the Reformation and remain in use in the present day. The kirk was abandoned in 1929, but maintained until 1944. The building was restored in 1993 and is regularly used. There is a display of photographs and a ceramic tile plaque designed by the children of Papay in the kirk.
