The College of Missions (Danish : Missionskollegiet; Latin : Collegium de cursu Evangelii promovendo) or Royal Mission College (Kongelige Missions-Kollegium) was a Dano-Norwegian association based in Copenhagen which funded and directed Protestant missions under royal patronage. Along with the Moravian church, it was the first large-scale Protestant mission effort.
The college was established by Frederick IV in 1714 to institutionalise the work he began by funding Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg and Heinrich Pluetschau's mission at the Danish colony of Fort Dansborg (Tranquebar) in India. Among its first efforts were funding missions in Lapland and Hans Egede's Bergen Greenland Company, which established the Island of Hope mission in 1721. Two child converts from the mission would later inspire Count von Zinzendorf to begin the Moravian missions.
Its first chairman (præses) was Johan Georg von Holstein (16 February 1662 – 26 December 1730), [1] who was the namesake for Holsteinsborg (now Sisimiut) in Greenland. [2]
Work among the Sami (Finnemisjon) was initiated under the pietist Thomas von Westen (1682–1727) in 1716. He swiftly established thirteen stations before his death. [3]
Work in Greenland was directed first by Hans Egede and then, after the death of his wife, his son Paul. It was administered in conjunction with the Moravian missions there and the various chartered companies, particularly the Royal Greenland Trading Department. Early on, the well-endowed college could provide an extensive scientific library to missionaries like Hans Glahn, Otto Fabricius, and Andreas Ginge who studied the flora, fauna, and meteorology of Greenland during their missions. [2] Money was so limited in the later 18th century that all but five missionaries were returned to Denmark in 1792 and British hostility during the Napoleonic Wars brought the number down to a single person. [4]
Most of the college's early records were destroyed in a Copenhagen fire between 5 and 7 June 1795. [2] The college was closed down on 17 June 1859 by Frederik VII [5] and its remaining activities were transferred to the Ministry of Culture. [6]
As of the royal decree of 19 April 1715, the College of Missions was also the main organisation for missions work among the Sami in Norway. For the first ten to twelve years, the work was led by Thomas von Westen.
The College of Missions received a royal allocation of 2000 rigsdaler; in addition, the college was allowed to take over the 1000 rigsdaler the churches in Finnmark had in capital. Additionally, it was determined in 1716–1718 that all main churches in the country would give two rigsdaler yearly to the missions work in Finnmark; annex churches would give one. Furthermore, the income of the churches in Helgeland would also go towards the mission. In 1720 the income from the churches in Vesterålen, Salten, and Lofoten was added to the mission. The most important source of the churches' income came from the construction of farms the churches owned in the district.
After the College of Missions was subordinated to the chancery, the properties the churches owned were transferred to the Nordland Church and School Fund .
The College of Missions employed missionaries and teachers, and operated schools and churches in Sami areas.
Norway was split into thirteen missionary districts, at the most:
This is a demography of the population of Greenland including population density, ethnicity, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.
Denmark and the former real union of Denmark–Norway had a colonial empire from the 17th through the 20th centuries, large portions of which were found in the Americas. Denmark and Norway in one form or another also maintained land claims in Greenland since the 13th century, the former up through the twenty-first century.
Nuuk is the capital of and most populous city in Greenland, an autonomous territory in the Kingdom of Denmark. Nuuk is the seat of government and the territory's largest cultural and economic center. The major cities from other countries closest to the capital are Iqaluit and St. John's in Canada and Reykjavík in Iceland. Nuuk contains a third of Greenland's population and its tallest building. Nuuk is also the seat of government for the Sermersooq municipality. In January 2023, it had a population of 19,604.
Porsanger is a municipality in Troms og Finnmark county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Lakselv. Other villages in the municipality include Børselv, Brenna, Indre Billefjord, Kistrand, Olderfjord, and Skoganvarre.
Hans Poulsen Egede was a Dano-Norwegian Lutheran missionary who launched mission efforts to Greenland, which led him to be styled the Apostle of Greenland. He established a successful mission among the Inuit and is credited with revitalizing Dano-Norwegian interest in the island after contact had been broken for about 300 years. He founded Greenland's capital Godthåb, now known as Nuuk.
Tharangambadi, formerly Tranquebar, is a town in the Mayiladuthurai district of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu on the Coromandel Coast. It lies 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) north of Karaikal, near the mouth of a distributary named Uppanar of the Kaveri River. Tranquebar was established on 19 November 1620 as the first Danish trading post in India. King Christian IV had sent his envoy Ove Gjedde who established contact with Raghunatha Nayak of Tanjore. An annual tribute was paid by the Danes to the Rajah of Tanjore until the colony of Tranquebar was sold to the British East India Company in 1845.
Paul or Poul Hansen Egede was a Dano-Norwegian theologian, missionary, and scholar who was principally concerned with the Lutheran mission among the Kalaallit people in Greenland that had been established by his father, Hans, in 1721.
Anders Porsanger was the first Sámi who received a higher education. In 1752 he was called to assist professor Knud Leem in his work on a Sámi dictionary while simultaneously studying at the Trondheim Cathedral School. Porsanger completed his theological education in Copenhagen 1761, and the same year he was appointed a missionary to Varanger. In 1764 he returned to Trondheim to give further assistance to Leem while also serving as hospital priest. In 1769 he was called by the College of Mission to Copenhagen to give a response to a suggestion from the Hungarian Jesuit scientist-priest János Sajnovics that the Hungarian alphabet should be used when writing in Sámi. Sajnovics] and astronomer Maximilian Hell visited Vadsø in 1769 in order to observe the Venus transit. During the visit they discovered that Sámi had the same linguistic roots as the Hungarian language. Porsanger agreed with Sajnovics on the use of the Hungarian alphabet while Leem disagreed. During Porsanger’s stay in Copenhagen he was appointed a resident chaplain at the Cathedral in Trondheim. This appointment was not well received locally, and the church made efforts to give him another position, and in 1771 he was appointed priest to Vadsø. Porsanger’s mother tongue was Sámi, and he translated several parts of the Bible into the Sámi language, most of which he burned after having been forced to give up his residency in Trondheim. Porsanger died on trip to Copenhagen to apply for a new position in the church. Along with his family he drowned in a shipwreck near the town of Risør and was buried there.
Norwegianization was an official policy carried out by the Norwegian government directed at the Sámi and later the Kven people of northern Norway, in which the goal was to assimilate non-Norwegian-speaking native populations into an ethnically and culturally uniform Norwegian population.
Arnarsaq, was an Inuk translator, interpreter and missionary, assistant to Paul Egede, Hans Glahn, and J. Sverdrup from Greenland. She and Hans Punngujooq translated the Bible into the Inuit language. She had an important position in the Danish missions among the Inuit on Greenland in the 18th century, and has also been portrayed in fiction.
Jacob Sørensen Severin was a Danish merchant who held a trade monopoly on Greenland from 1733 to 1749.
Gertrud Rask was the first wife of the Danish-Norwegian missionary to Greenland Hans Egede and was the mother of the missionary and translator Paul Egede.
Old Nuuk may refer to several neighborhoods of Nuuk, the capital of Greenland.
Hans Egede Saabye was a Danish priest and a missionary to Greenland.
The Moravian missions in Greenland were established by the Moravian Church or United Brethren and operated between 1733 and 1900. They were operated under the auspices of the Royal Danish College of Missions until its dissolution in 1859 and were finally surrendered to the Lutheran Church of Denmark in 1900. Missionaries were allocated to the region and sometimes even sent wives who had been chosen for them and approved by the drawing of lots, a form of Cleromancy.
The Bergen Greenland Company or Bergen Company (Bergenkompagniet) was a Dano-Norwegian private corporation charged with founding and administering Danish-Norwegian colonies and trade in Greenland, as well as searching for any survivors from the former Norse settlements on the island. It operated from 1721 until its bankruptcy in 1727. Although the Bergen Company failed as a concern and both its settlements were destroyed and abandoned, it was ultimately successful in re-establishing sovereignty over Greenland.
Thomas von Westen was a Norwegian Lutheran priest and missionary. He was a driving force in the Sami mission, and founded the education institution Seminarium Scholasticum, the later Seminarium Lapponicum, in Trondheim.
The Nærøy manuscript, originally Relation anlangende Find-Lappernis saa-vel i Norrlandene og Finmarken som udi Nummedalen, Snaasen og Selbye deres Afguderie og’ Satans Dyrkelse, som Tid efter anden ere blevne udforskede og decouvrerede [Treatise on the Sami in Nordland and Finnmark as well as in Namdal, Snåsa and Selbu, their idolatry and worship of Satan, as it has been revealed], is a 1723 treatise by Johan Randulf, then a vicar in Nærøy. Randulf writes about Sami missionary Thomas von Westen's visit to Nærøy in January 1723. Randulf and von Westen summoned the Sami people of the parish to be interviewed and taught at the vicarage of Nærøy Church.
The Tranquebar Mission was established in 1706 by two German missionaries from Halle namely, Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg and Heinrich Plütschau. Ziegenbalg and Plütschau responded to the appeal of King Frederick IV of Denmark to establish a mission for the natives, living in the Danish East India Company colony of Tranquebar. The mission was responsible for the printing and publication of the Bible in the Tamil language. In 2006, the 300 years anniversary of the mission was celebrated by the Tamil Evangelical Lutheran Church (TELC), with many international delegates in attendance. A monument to acknowledge 300 years of the mission was raised by the TELC on this occasion.
The Christianization of the Sámi people in Norway and Sweden–Finland took place in stages during a several centuries long process. The Sámi were Christianized in a similar way in both Norway and Sweden–Finland.
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