This is Melrose Abbey, a part of Christendom which was never Roman Catholic. Celtic Christians from Iona started this work.
Centuries before Cistercian heretics & idolaters rode into Scotland on the coattails of Crusaders and King David's Catholic wife Margaret (her corrupting influence on the faith is still mourned), this monastery was founded by, then later dedicated to, Saint Aidan of Lindisfarne shortly before his death in 651, at Old Melrose, then in the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Northumbria the ancient Culdee Christian faith was practiced, in defiance of Roman Catholic pressure. Augustine used Roman forces to put the old monks, priests, Bishops and churches to sword & flame. This was about 4 centuries before the current Abbey was built, now mostly in ruins, as is the Roman Catholic heresy.
It bears mentioning that the Roman Catholic Church bought off the Anglo-Saxons to persecute the ancient and sacred faith of the native Celtic population. These factors came to a head in the Reformation, when the kingdoms of the Isles forsook their Catholic chains for a purer Protestant Faith!
The tentacles of the Roman Anti-Christ took a good deal of time to reach a total conquest in the British Isles, and even then, it did not seem to sink very deeply (except for in parts of Ireland), as it did in Spain, parts of France, and Italy.
Roman Catholic is a contradiction in terms; Roman is a locality; Catholic means universal. There is no local-universal church.
Jesus Christ is the only head of the Catholic Church, and He has no vicar, but the Holy Spirit. By the way, Anti-Christ means one who takes the place of Christ, or who is the vicar of Christ.
From the days of Hildebrand and beyond, the papacy has made the satanic claim to universal jurisdiction over church and state, and has exalted itself over everything that is called "god," sitting in the temple, as the Apostles foretold, and as the Fathers of the Church clearly predicted. For example, Gregory I, the Bishop of Rome (!) said that anyone who claimed a universal bishopric was the forerunner of Anti-Christ, and that if the Apostles and apostolic men refused to claim to be the head of the church, how much less mere bishops?
Of course, Rome was always given the status of first among equals, as is clear from the Canons of Nicea and Chalcedon, and the primacy clearly followed the center of civil administration. Thus, when the civil center of the empire moved east, the first-among-equal status was transferred to the bishop of Constantinople; this was fought against by the anti-Christian spirit of the Roman Popes, who claimed to make evil good and good evil by their decrees, thus fulfilling the prophecy of the "man of sin" or lawlessness.
The Reformation was the beginning of destroying the man of sin's grip on all the kings of the earth, and the Lord will finally destroy him with the brightness of His Second Coming. May the Lord save us from bowing to the image of the beast, and from heeding the false prophet.
Once you study the canons of the church and the Fathers, the lies of the papacy lose their savor.
I recommend Volume 3 of Turretin's Institutes as an excellent exposure to these sources.
