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On any given day, hundreds of people enter in and out of St. Giles Church located in the center of the old town of Edinburgh. This historic church, which welcomes 400,000 visitors each year, is located between Edinburgh Castle and Holyrood Palace. With its spires stretching into the sky, the church seemingly looks over Scotland; appropriately so, since it has been in the same location for over 900 years.

The first parish church in Edinburgh, called “Edwinsburch,” dates back to the year 854 CE. This church was likely served by a vicar from a monastic church located in England.

At first glance, the outer appearance of St. Giles suggests that the church fought an unending battle to remain afloat over the years. It is not that the church is unsightly, because this certainly is not the case. However, its elaborate towers, fading color, and tainted windows reflect its antiquity in a part of town that thrives in modernity and bustles with commercialism.

In 1384, a group of 30 Frenchmen arrived in Edinburgh with hopes of convincing the king of Scotland and Scottish barons and knights to attack their greatest enemy, the English. The French were not only on a mission to set Edinburgh at war with the English, but they were also willing to aid the Scottish in this crusade.

The king of Scotland declined the French offers, but the barons, who found the offer more appealing, met in the church of St. Giles to plan their attack on England without the king’s approval. Soliciting the help of the French, the Scottish barons and knights sent 15,000 men to the countries of northern England. Though these men returned successfully to Scotland with many prisoners and plunder, the English soon sought bitter revenge.

One year later, in 1385, the English army invaded Scotland under the guidance of Richard III. With troops fueled by hatred of the Scottish, Richard III pushed his men to the capital, Edinburgh, located in central Scotland. So much of the capital was subjected to fire in the forceful attacks of the English. Abbeys, houses, and local businesses—all made of wood—quickly went up in flames. The only building that survived, though with very visible damage, was St. Giles.

Immediately after the English raid, the houses were rebuilt within a matter of months. The church required more time to be restored, because while the Scots desperately wanted to display a church worthy of being in the capital, St. Giles' endowments were very, very small.

In the years that followed additions were made to the church, including pillars, altars, and stained glassed windows. The most practical building advancement was that the church with rebuilt with stone instead of wood.

In 1460, the church received an armbone of St. Giles as a relic. This armbone belonged to a saint who was popular in Catholic countries, including France. It is likely that St. Giles Church was named after a French saint due to ancient ties that existed between France and Scotland, especially between the eighth and tenth century.

History suggests that St. Giles was accidently injured by a hunter in search of a hind. After his death, many hospitals and shelters were dedicated to him for beggars and cripples in need of protection and support. St. Giles is usually portrayed as rescuing a hind from an arrow—an image that is proudly displayed over the church doors in Edinburgh.

Shortly after the church received St. Gile’s relic, another major change took place when in the 1460s, St. Giles was deemed a collegiate church instead of a simple parish church. Scotland’s recognition of St. Giles as a collegiate church meant that it was pulling away from the monastic orders that long influenced its existence until this point and now operating under a dean or provost.

Now St. Giles could primarily look to private investors to support their growth instead of solely relying on church orders to provide what amounted to limited funds. What the switch from parish church to collegiate church most signaled was the growing divide between religious and secular communities.

Eighty years later another event, the Scottish Reformation, more forcefully demonstrated the split between the religious and secular, especially when churches tried breaking away from the papacy in Rome. John Knox, who led the Reformation in Scotland, greatly influenced the styles of worship and administration necessary to oversee those styles of worship in Edinburgh.

Apparently, during this time when the celebration of Catholic Mass was forbidden and Protestantism was growing, the church of St. Giles faced many physical changes as well as spiritual changes. St. Giles Church was divided so that the congregation could worship in one area of the space, and the other parts of the building could be used for other purposes. What followed in the next three hundred years was St. Giles serving as a religious sanctuary in some sections and fire station, police station, and coal storage center in other sections. At one point the Scottish guillotine was even housed in the church and used for awful offenders of the nation.

It was only in 1665, when William Forbes became the first bishop of the diocese of Edinburgh, when St. Giles became a space for solely worship again and has remained so ever since. Now refurbished to its original state, the church attracts larger amounts of followers than ever.

St. Giles, which stands on High Street, has not only watched Scotland’s development through history, but it has been a part of many of the significant events that took place. When people walk through the church doors—whether to pray, to rest, or to observe—they behold a building rich with history deeply venerated by the Scottish. They engage with a structure that proudly tells of the culture of Scotland as much as any Scottish native could do. They connect with the Mother Church of Presbyterianism, the sanctuary of the Scots, and the heart of Scotland.