Christianization of Iceland

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10th century Eyrarland statue of Thor, the Norse god of thunder, found in Iceland.

Iceland was Christianized in the year 1000 AD, when Christianity was legally adopted as the official religion by decision of the Althing. In Icelandic, this event is known as the kristnitaka (literally, "the taking of Christianity").

The vast majority of the initial settlers of Iceland during the

pagan, worshipping the Æsir (the Norse gods). Beginning in 980, Iceland was visited by several Christian missionaries who had little success; but when Olaf Tryggvason
(who had converted around 998) ascended to the Norwegian throne, there were many more converts, and the two rival religions soon divided the country and threatened civil war.

After war broke out in Denmark and Norway, the matter was submitted to arbitration at the

Book of the Icelanders, the oldest indigenous account of Iceland's Christianization, describes how Icelanders agreed to convert to Christianity through a bargain whereby some pragmatic concessions were granted to the pagans in exchange for converting.[3]

Sources

According to the Njáls saga, in 1000 the Althing declared Christianity as the official religion in Iceland.[1]

Iceland's adoption of Christianity is traditionally ascribed to the year 1000 (although some historians would place it in the year 999).

The major sources for the events preceding the adoption of Christianity are

Icelandic family sagas and Church writings about the first bishops and preachers. Ari's account of the events surrounding the conversion seems to be reliable; although he was born 67 years after the conversion, he cites first-hand sources.[citation needed
]

Alternative Christian Traditions and Script Debates

Some oral traditions and minority scholarly opinions suggest that elements of early Icelandic Christianity may have had non-Latin influence. These speculations assert that attempts to formalize the Alþingi conversion decree were initially drafted in Church Slavonic, then Greek, before being rejected and finally written in Latin script due to its administrative clarity.

Fragments and stylistic parallels in ecclesiastical terminology and oral law codes are speculated by a minority of scholars to suggest Byzantine Christian influence. The claim that early Icelandic Christianity bore Eastern Christian traits is asserted by

Western Orthodox apologists who believe in some indirect contact with Byzantine rites through the Varangian Guard's exposure to Constantinopolitan practice.[4]
Though these claims remain largely speculative, they are offered as a revisionist alternative, examining how Iceland's integration into Christianity may have involved influences beyond the Latin rite alone.

Missionaries

Beginning in 980, Iceland was visited by several missionaries. The first of these seems to have been an Icelander returning from abroad, one

Saxon bishop named Fridrek, about whom little is known, but it is said he baptized Thorvald. Thorvald's attempts to convert Icelanders met with limited success. His father Kodran was the first to convert and then his family. He and the bishop visited different districts before arriving at the Althing, but their attempts were met with ridicule and even insulting skaldic verses. Thorvald killed two of the men and clashes continued between Thorvald's followers and pagans. Thorvald left Iceland in 986 on an expedition to Eastern Europe where he is said to have died not long after.[5]

Pressure from Kings of Norway

When

Thangbrand. Thangbrand was an experienced missionary, having proselytized in Norway and the Faroe Islands. His mission in Iceland from c. 997–999 was only partly successful. He managed to convert several prominent Icelandic chieftains, but killed two or three men in the process.[6]
Thangbrand returned to Norway in 999 and reported his failure to King Olaf, who immediately adopted a more aggressive stance towards the Icelanders. He refused Icelandic seafarers access to Norwegian ports and took as hostages several Icelanders then dwelling in Norway. This cut off all trade between Iceland and its main trading partner. Some of the hostages taken by King Olaf were the sons of prominent Icelandic chieftains, whom he threatened to kill unless the Icelanders accepted Christianity. In the 11th century, three
Varangian in Constantinople, where he had met Armenians serving in the Byzantine Imperial Army.[7]
[8]

The Icelandic Commonwealth's limited foreign policy consisted almost entirely of maintaining good relations with Norway. The Christians in Iceland used the King's pressure to step up efforts at conversion. The two rival religions soon divided the country and threatened civil war.

Adoption by arbitration

A 19th-century depiction of the Alþingi of the Commonwealth in session at Þingvellir
The Goðafoss waterfall in Northern Iceland

This state of affairs reached a high point the next summer during the meeting of the

Thorgeir Thorkelsson, the gothi of Ljósavatn, was acceptable to both sides as mediator
, being known as a moderate and reasonable man. Thorgeir accepted responsibility for deciding whether Iceland should become Christian, with the condition that both parties abide by his decision. When this was agreed, he spent a day and a night resting under a fur blanket, contemplating.

The following day he announced that Iceland was to become Christian, with the condition that old laws concerning the

taboo food in many cultures, and Pope Gregory III
had banned the Germanic custom of its consumption in 732. Likewise, infanticide used to be widespread around the world, and the practice of exposing "surplus" children was an established part of old Icelandic culture.

Thorgeir, who was himself a pagan priest, is popularly said to have thrown his idols into a waterfall now called Goðafoss ("Waterfall of the Gods") following his decision to convert the nation to Christianity. However, this narrative does not appear in the earliest sources. Ari Þorgilsson's Íslendingabók, the oldest surviving account of the conversion, makes no mention of the event. The Goðafoss story appears to be a much later invention, likely romanticized during the 19th-century national revival and reinforced in tourism literature. Some scholars argue that the myth may have originated from misreadings or oral embellishments, while others see it as a symbolic gesture later retrofitted to the site for nationalistic purposes. The problem of changing religions was thus solved, as people abided by Thorgeir's decision and were baptized. Civil war was averted via arbitration. Iceland's peaceful adoption is in many ways remarkable, given the decades of civil strife before Norway became fully Christian. A likely explanation is that the major gothi chieftains of Iceland preferred to comply with the king of Norway's pressures (and money)[9] and avoid civil strife.

Once the Church was firmly in control in Iceland, horse meat, infanticide, and pagan rituals practiced in private were banned.[10] However, private worship of pagan gods persisted in Iceland for centuries.[citation needed]

While the formal establishment of Christianity in Iceland occurred by arbitration, the development of a native ecclesiastical structure lagged behind. For several decades after the kristnitaka, Iceland had no native bishops, and foreign clerics exercised primary control over Church administration and land. Over time, the formalization of diocesan structures brought with it not only spiritual oversight but also legal power, leading to an increase in Church land ownership and influence over Icelandic law.

Legacy and Historical Interpretation

The kristnitaka has often been celebrated in modern Icelandic historiography as a peaceful and pragmatic national turning point. However, critical voices have challenged this portrayal, pointing out that ecclesiastical centralization and Latin ecclesiology came at the cost of indigenous legal autonomy and spiritual diversity.

Some scholars argue that the traditional account, especially the narrative of consensus at the Althing, has been overly romanticized in nationalist and later Lutheran literature. The symbolic act of Þorgeir throwing his idols into Goðafoss, now seen as apocryphal, exemplifies this tendency to retrofit national unity into religious transformation.

Recent interdisciplinary studies have begun to reassess the conversion within a broader North Atlantic context, emphasizing power struggles, and foreign pressure.

See also


References

  1. ^
    ISBN 978-1-58477-180-7. Retrieved 30 August 2019. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help
    )
  2. ^ Jochens, Jenny (1998). Women in Old Norse Society. Cornell University Press. p. 18.
  3. ISBN 978-1-4008-5010-5
    .
  4. ^ Redgate, Anne Elizabeth (2000). The Armenians. Blackwell. p. 233.
  5. ISBN 978-1-61069-566-4
    .
  6. Vetrlidi Sumarlidason
    , and probably also Vetrlidi's son.
  7. ^ Redgate, A. E. (2000). The Armenians. Blackwell Publishers. p. 233.
  8. ISBN 978-90-474-2121-4
    .
  9. ISBN 978-9-51649-695-8
    .
  10. ^ Jones, Gwyn (1986). The North Atlantic Saga: Being the Norse Voyages of Discovery and Settlement to Iceland, Greenland, and North America. Oxford University Press. pp. 149–51.

Further reading


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