This is the list of cathedrals in Iceland sorted by denomination.
Contents
This is the list of cathedrals in Iceland sorted by denomination.
Cathedrals of the Church of Iceland:
Cathedrals of the Roman Catholic Church in Iceland: [1]
The Church of Iceland, officially the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Iceland, is the national church of Iceland. The church is Christian and professes the Lutheran faith. It is a member of the Lutheran World Federation, the Porvoo Communion, the Communion of Protestant Churches in Europe, and the World Council of Churches.
Skálholt is a historical site in the south of Iceland, at the river Hvítá.
Hallgrímur Pétursson was an Icelandic poet and a minister at Hvalsneskirkja and Saurbær in Hvalfjörður. Being one of the most prominent Icelandic poets, the Hallgrímskirkja in Reykjavík and the Hallgrímskirkja in Saurbær are named in his honor. He was one of the most influential pastors during the Age of Orthodoxy (1580–1713). Because of his contributions to Lutheran hymnody, he is sometimes called the Icelandic Paul Gerhardt.
Hólar is a small community in the Skagafjörður district of northern Iceland.
Hólar University is located in Hólar, Iceland, an important historical centre of education. The university was the first post-secondary school in Hólar, founded in 1106. It was renamed Hólar Agricultural College in 1882 and became Hólar University in 2007. Established in the 12th century, Hólar is one of the oldest universities in Europe.
The Bishop of Reykjavík is the head of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Reykjavík, part of the Catholic church in Iceland.
Religion in Iceland has been predominantly Christianity since its adoption as the state religion by the Althing under the influence of Olaf Tryggvason, the king of Norway, in 999/1000 CE. Until then, in the 9th and 10th centuries, the prevailing religion among the early Icelanders — who were mostly Norwegian settlers fleeing Harald Fairhair's monarchical centralisation in 872–930, with some Swedes and Norse British settlers — was the northern Germanic religion, which persisted for centuries even after the official Christianisation of the state.
The Diocese of Reykjavík is a Latin Church diocese of the Catholic Church which covers the whole of the country of Iceland, and numbered 14,723 Catholics as of 2022. It is directly subject to the Holy See.
The Catholic Church in Iceland is part of the Catholic Church, under the spiritual leadership of the Pope. The island is served by a single diocese, the Diocese of Reykjavík, having a total of seven parishes. As of 2015, the ordinary is bishop Dávid Bartimej Tencer. The diocese is directly subject to the Holy See.
The Diocese of Skálholt is a suffragan diocese of the Church of Iceland. It was the estate of the first bishop in Iceland, Isleifr Gizurarson, who became bishop in 1056.. His son, Gizurr, donated it to become the official see. The Diocese was amalgamated in 1801 and now forms part of the Diocese of Iceland under the leadership of the Bishop of Iceland. In 1909, the diocese was restored as a suffragan see, with the Bishop of Skálholt being a suffragan bishop to the Bishop of Iceland.
Thorlak Thorhallsson is the patron saint of Iceland. He was Bishop of Skálholt from 1178 until his death. Thorlak's relics were translated to the Cathedral of Skalholt in 1198, not long after his successor, Páll Jónsson, announced at the Althing that vows could be made to Thorlak.
The Icelandic Reformation took place in the middle of the 16th century. Iceland was at this time a territory ruled by Denmark-Norway, and Lutheran religious reform was imposed on the Icelanders by King Christian III of Denmark. Resistance to the Icelandic Reformation ended with the execution of Jón Arason, Catholic bishop of Hólar, and his two sons, in 1550.
Auðunn rauði Þorbergsson was bishop of Iceland's northern diocese of Hólar 1313–22.
The history of Christianity in Iceland can be traced back to the Early Middle Ages when Irish hermits settled in Iceland at least a century before the arrival of the first Norse settlers in the 870s. Christianity started to spread among the Icelanders at the end of the 10th century. The adoption of the new faith by the whole population was the consequence of a compromise between the Christian and heathen chieftains, as well as the lawspeaker, at the national assembly or Alþingi of 999 or 1000.
The bishops' saga is a genre of medieval Icelandic sagas, mostly thirteenth- and earlier fourteenth-century prose histories dealing with bishops of Iceland's two medieval dioceses of Skálholt and Hólar.
Geir Vídalín Jónsson was an Icelandic prelate who was the last diocesan Bishop of Skálholt from 1797 till 1801 when he became the first Bishop of Iceland.
Þórður Þorláksson, also known by the Latinized name Theodorus Thorlacius, was the Lutheran bishop of Skálholt from 1674 until his death. Under Þórður's direction, the Church of Iceland's printing press was moved from Hólar í Hjaltadal to Skálholt where he established the first print archive in the country.
Gísli Þorláksson was an Icelandic bishop. He was a son of Þorlákur Skúlason and brother of Þórður Þorláksson.
Waysenhússbiblía, also referred to as the Vajsenhússbiblía, was the fourth complete Icelandic translation of the Bible, printed in 1747 by the Kongelige Vajsenhus's print shop in Copenhagen, Denmark. Waysenhús is the Icelandic version of vajsenhus. In 1727, the Vajsenhus was granted exclusive rights by Frederick IV of Denmark to publish the Bible in Denmark–Norway.