John Menzies Strain

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John Menzies Strain (born at Edinburgh, 8 December 1810; died there, 2 July 1883) was a Scottish Catholic priest, who became the first Archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh.

[edit] Life

Educated at Edinburgh High School, at Aquhorties Seminary, and at the Scots College, Rome, he was ordained priest in 1833. After work in Edinburgh and Dumfries, he was appointed to the mission of Dalbeattie, where he was for twenty-three years.

Transferred to Dumfries in 1857, he was appointed in the following year president of Blairs College, Aberdeen. On the death of James Gillies in 1864 he was nominated to succeed him as Vicar Apostolic of the Eastern District, named Titular Bishop of Abila, and consecrated by Pope Pius IX at the Vatican on 25 September.

During his nineteen years' episcopate he saw the number of clergy and missions increase in his district; many new schools were opened, and several religious communities, both of men and women, introduced. The bishop worked for the restoration of the Scottish hierarchy; and it was greatly due to his effects that the restoration took place, under Pope Leo XIII, in 1878. He became himself the first Archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh, and held his first diocesan synod in 1881.