Welcome to five minutes in church history hosted by Dr Stephen Nichols, where we take a little

break from the present to go exploring the past. Travel back in time as we look at the people,

events, and even the places that have shaped the story of Christianity.

This is our story, our family history. Let's get started.

Welcome back to another episode of five minutes in church history. As the legend has it,

sometime in the 8th century a monk on a mission brought the bones of St Andrew to Scotland and so the name took St Andrews and

from then on it was the center of the Scottish Church.

Well if we fast forward a few centuries. In 1413 the university was founded there, the

University of St Andrews, and not long after the university came into existence a

medical missionary from Prague came to Scotland. It was in the late 1420s and his

name was Paul Krawer. Now here's a case of the UK going to Prague and then this coming back to the UK.

There was an influence of Wycliffe in Prague and these were the Lawlards.

Not only did you have the Wickliff influence in Prague with the Lawlards, but you also had

the Bohemian reformer himself, the man from the Czech Republic, then Bohemia, and the city of Prague

Jan Hus.

So this young man Paul Kraer was converted to the gospel,

was a believer in the power of the gospel,

and a believer in the power of scripture,

and he was also trained as a doctor. He was

trained there at the University of Prague and was practicing medicine and he

was part of this small Lawlord congregation in Prague and they decided that they would send him

as their missionary as their representative to take the gospel into Scotland.

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