We are all called to leadership...

One evening soon after the Battle of Hastings in 1066, a small ship set sail from the shores of England attempting to ride out a fierce storm.

St Margaret of Scotland – transformed her nation – Patroness of wives, mothers and learning

On board the vessel was the widow of the Saxon Prince, Edward the Exile (1016-1057) as well as the youthful and beautiful Princess Margaret. The small party were fleeing the victorious William, Duke of Normandy (1028-1087). Tossed upon the torrent of the sea, and blown wildly off-course, the little vessel eventually ran aground on the shore of the Firth of Forth in Edinburgh, at a place today known as Queensferry. Margaret (1047-1093) would in time become the Queen of Scotland, marrying Malcolm III (1031-1093), and by a life of virtue and good works would help rebuild the religious identity of Scotland. Her children would later become some of the most judicious rulers of the Kingdom.

A little less than a century after her death, in 1251, Margaret would be canonized a Saint of the Catholic Church.

Interestingly, St. Margaret of Scotland, although a heroine in the West, had her roots in the East. According to two Anglo-Saxon chroniclers, Geoffrey Gaimar (c.1140) and Roger of Hoveden (c. 1174 - 1201), Margaret was born in Hungary while her parents were making their journey from the East returning to the country of her father's birth. Margaret's father, the heir to the English throne was given refuge in Kyiv having escaped execution in Denmark. Margaret's mother was the Kyivian Princess, Agatha Yaroslavna.

Margaret's maternal grandfather, Yaroslav the Wise of Kyiv (c. 978-1054), was a builder of monasteries, a law-giver, and a man who placed huge emphasis on learning, literacy and the Christian faith. It was Yaroslav who had built the famous Golden Gates of Kyiv. Aside from Margaret's mother, Agatha, Yaroslav's three remaining daughters were married to powerful European monarchs: Anna (1024-1075), known in French history, as Anne de Kyiv, was at the time of Margaret's ascent to the Scottish throne, Queen of France, while Anastasia was the wife of King Andrew I of Hungary (1016-1061), and Elizabeth the Queen of King Harald III of Norway (1015-1066).

	Yaroslav the Wise – builder of monasteries, a law-giver, and a man who placed huge emphasis on learning, literacy and the Christian faith

Margaret's maternal great grandfather was the Grand Duke, St. Volodymyr the Great, one of the most venerated Saints of the Eastern Church, and St. Volodymyr's grandmother was St. Olha (d. 969). Thus the tall, flaxen-haired eighteen year old princess, who came up on the shore of Scotland, brought to her new country a family history of evangelization and Christian rule. As the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle would say of Margaret: "The Creator knew beforehand what he would have made of her. For she was to increase God's praise in the land and direct the king from the erring path and bend him to a better way and his people with him".

St. Margaret of Scotland would in her lifetime shape the culture of her adopted nation, and after her death would be venerated as the patroness of wives, mothers and learning. St. Margaret of Scotland holds before each of us the ideal of how best to be a steward in the vineyard of the Lord, as Dr. W.F. Skene notes: "For purity of motives, for an earnest desire to benefit the people among whom her lot was cast, for a deep sense of religion and great personal piety, for the unselfish performance of whatever duty lay before her and for entire self-abnegation, she is unsurpassed … No more beautiful character has been recorded in history". (Menzies, et.al. 1987, p. 15)

Plato in his work, The Statesman provides us with some of the earliest rationale as to what constitutes fine civic leadership. According to Plato, the role of the political figure is to re-establish the Divine order that first existed before chaos began to reign in the world. For Plato it is the 'statesman' who sets the tone for the community by not only dividing resources judiciously but also by giving the people the moral example by which to live. It is therefore the 'statesman' who must lead the collective psyche of his or her nation to its highest good — that being to the Divine Law.

No doubt aware of Plato's work, St. John Chrysostom exhorted his fourth century audience as to the importance of educating Christian leaders of the future -Critical about the lack of Christian moral example among the leaders of his day, the great Patriarch of Constantinople, in a controversial homily, declared from the pulpit:

"Look at those who rule your city or your nation. Some seem to have no qualities which mark them out for such a task; they hold a position of power through an accident of birth, or through ingratiating themselves with their superiors. Some have natural authority, so that they inspire confidence and respect in others. Some possess natural wisdom, so they handle easily the complex affairs of state. But whether or not they have natural gifts, there is another type of gift which surpasses all others: the gift of knowing right from wrong, and the courage to choose what is right. This moral gift is not something which is given at birth, and which some people possess and others do not. The potential of moral discernment is like a seed sown in every human heart, and this seed grows only if it is nurtured through reflection, education, prayer, and practice …" (Chrysostom, 1996, p. 40)

The purpose of Christian leadership is therefore to serve God through the service of a human institution. The Christian leader is not required to serve the people per se, but to search within his or her heart to do God's will in the particular circumstances in which they find themselves placed. Their task is to restore the Divine Order by acting with justice, prudence and wisdom. The Christian leader must avoid serving the creature in place of the Creator, they must be active in the world, but not of it. The higher calling in Christian leadership, that which we owe God, should thus always be the overarching objective.

James McGregor Burns in his work, Transforming Leadership (2003), sums up the end-point of leadership within society with the words: "While leadership is necessary at every stage, beginning with the first spark that awakens people's hopes, its vital role is to create and expand the opportunities that empower people to pursue happiness for themselves". (p. 240)

Such a theory is applicable both to the Christian leader as to the non-Christian but with the important distinction, that the Christian is aware that the pursuit of happiness does not depend on increasing a nation's economic affluence or the attainment of honours; these are important factors in the material well-being of a nation, but they do not give the nation a reason to exist. Rather the greatest happiness of the human person, both as an individual and a collection of individuals within a society is as St. Ireneus of Lyon writes, "the vision of God".

Any leadership in society which does not seek to have as its end-goal the desire to seek and uphold the Divine Law may deliver a form of happiness, but this happiness will only be of the type which can disintegrate, or which thieves can take or which a shift in the business cycle may destroy. For a nation to rest on solid foundations the nation must seek to base its collective soul on that which moth, rust or thief cannot destroy. Herein lies the endearing legacy of St. Margaret's life, and a lesson for our time and for our leaders — the preservation of a temporal nation based on eternal values, for as Proverbs (29:18) reminds us, "Where there is no vision the people perish".

Andrew

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©2006 Dr Andrew Thomas Kania

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