Sissel Undheim is Professor of Religion at the University of Bergen. She is an expert on gender and sexuality in the late Roman period, New Age religion, and the didactics of religion.
Undheim received her PhD from the University of Bergen in 2011. Her doctoral thesis was entitled Sanctae virginitates: Sacred and Consecrated Virginities in Late Roman Antiquity. [1]
Undheim published a monograph with Routledge in 2018, Borderline Virginities: Sacred and Secular Virgins in Late Antiquity. [2] She edited a collection of translated texts on Roman religion (Romersk religion) for the Norwegian series Verdens Hellige Skrifter (Sacred Texts of the World), published in 2010. [3] With Marie von der Lippe, she edited the volume Religion i skolen: Didaktiske perspektiver på religions- og livssynsfaget, published in 2017. [4]
Undheim was a Fellow at the Centre for Advanced Study at the University of Oslo, 2020–21, for the project 'Books Known Only by Title: Exploring the Gendered Structures of First Millennium Imagined Libraries'. [5]
Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken mainly in Norway, where it is an official language. Along with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a dialect continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional varieties; some Norwegian and Swedish dialects, in particular, are very close. These Scandinavian languages, together with Faroese and Icelandic as well as some extinct languages, constitute the North Germanic languages. Faroese and Icelandic are not mutually intelligible with Norwegian in their spoken form because continental Scandinavian has diverged from them. While the two Germanic languages with the greatest numbers of speakers, English and German, have close similarities with Norwegian, neither is mutually intelligible with it. Norwegian is a descendant of Old Norse, the common language of the Germanic peoples living in Scandinavia during the Viking Age.
A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities. Their office or position is the 'priesthood', a term which also may apply to such persons collectively. A priest may have the duty to hear confessions periodically, give marriage counseling, provide prenuptial counseling, give spiritual direction, teach catechism, or visit those confined indoors, such as the sick in hospitals and nursing homes.
The University of Bergen is a research-intensive state university located in Bergen, Norway. As of 2019, the university has over 4,000 employees and 18,000 students. It was established by an act of parliament in 1946 based on several older scientific institutions dating back to 1825, and is Norway's second oldest university. It is considered one of Norway's four "established universities" and has faculties and programmes in all the fields of a classical university including fields that are traditionally reserved by law for established universities, including medicine and law. It is also one of Norway's leading universities in many natural sciences, including marine research and climate research. It is consistently ranked in the top one percentage among the world's universities, usually among the best 200 universities and among the best 10 or 50 universities worldwide in some fields such as earth and marine sciences. It is part of the Coimbra Group and of the U5 group of Norway's oldest and highest ranked universities.
Vesta is the virgin goddess of the hearth, home, and family in Roman religion. She was rarely depicted in human form, and was more often represented by the fire of her temple in the Forum Romanum. Entry to her temple was permitted only to her priestesses, the Vestal Virgins, who guarded particular sacred objects within, prepared flour and sacred salt for official sacrifices, and tended Vesta's sacred fire at the temple hearth. Their virginity was thought essential to Rome's survival; if found guilty of inchastity, they were buried or entombed alive. As Vesta was considered a guardian of the Roman people, her festival, the Vestalia, was regarded as one of the most important Roman holidays. During the Vestalia privileged matrons walked barefoot through the city to the temple, where they presented food-offerings. Such was Vesta's importance to Roman religion that following the rise of Christianity, hers was one of the last non-Christian cults still active, until it was forcibly disbanded by the Christian emperor Theodosius I in AD 391.
A gallus was a eunuch priest of the Phrygian goddess Cybele and her consort Attis, whose worship was incorporated into the state religious practices of ancient Rome.
Virginity is the state of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse. The term virgin originally only referred to sexually inexperienced women, but has evolved to encompass a range of definitions, as found in traditional, modern and ethical concepts. Heterosexual individuals may or may not consider loss of virginity to occur only through penile-vaginal penetration, while people of other sexual orientations often include oral sex, anal sex, or mutual masturbation in their definitions of losing one's virginity.
In ancient Rome, the Vestal Virgins or Vestals were priestesses of Vesta, virgin goddess of Rome's sacred hearth and its flame.
Nynorsk is one of the two written standards of the Norwegian language, the other being Bokmål. From 12 May 1885, it became the state-sanctioned version of Ivar Aasen's standard Norwegian language parallel to the Dano-Norwegian written language (Riksmål). Nynorsk became the name in 1929, and it is after a series of reforms still a variation which is closer to Landsmål, whereas Bokmål is closer to Riksmål and Danish.
The Christian Democratic Party is a Christian-democratic political party in Norway founded in 1933. The party is an observer member of the European People's Party (EPP). It currently holds three seats in the Parliament, having won 3.8% of the vote in the 2021 parliamentary election. The current leader of the party is Olaug Bollestad.
Consecration is the transfer of a person or a thing to the sacred sphere for a special purpose or service. The word consecration literally means "association with the sacred". Persons, places, or things can be consecrated, and the term is used in various ways by different groups. The origin of the word comes from the Latin stem consecrat, which means dedicated, devoted, and sacred. A synonym for consecration is sanctification; its antonym is desecration.
In the Catholic Church, a consecrated virgin is a woman who has been consecrated by the church to a life of perpetual virginity as a bride of Christ. Consecrated virgins are consecrated by the diocesan bishop according to the approved liturgical rite.
Consecrated life is a state of life in the Catholic Church lived by those faithful who are called to follow Jesus Christ in a more exacting way. It includes those in institutes of consecrated life, societies of apostolic life, as well as those living as hermits or consecrated virgins/widows.
Terje Isungset is a Norwegian drummer. From his background in jazz and traditional Scandinavian music, he has designed musical instruments from non-traditional materials, including ice.
Eastern Orthodox Christianity in Norway is a small minority religion in Norway with 11,205 official members in 2012, up from 2,315 in 2000. although the church is rapidly growing, and predicted to surpass other Christian denominations.
Throughout history, Catholic Mariology has been influenced by a number of saints who have attested to the central role of Mary in God's plan of salvation. The analysis of Early Church Fathers continues to be reflected in modern encyclicals. Irenaeus vigorously defended the title of "Theotokos" or Mother of God. The views of Anthony of Padua, Robert Bellarmine and others supported the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, which was declared a dogma in 1850.
The title Virgin is an honorific bestowed on female saints and blesseds in some Christian traditions, including the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church.
Sara Mats Azmeh Rasmussen is a Syrian-Norwegian author, freelance writer, lecturer and human rights activist. She was born in 1973 and grew up in Damascus, Syria, in a Sunni Muslim family with deep roots in the capital. In 1995 she immigrated alone to Norway, and in 1997 she was granted political asylum. She was later granted Swedish citizenship.
The Apostles of Infinite Love is a traditionalist Independent Catholic religious group active in various parts of the world, with its headquarters being in Quebec. It was founded by Michel Collin, a French Catholic priest in Lille, who proclaimed himself Pope Clement XV, after receiving a vision from God crowning him with a papal tiara. Initially heading a religious congregation that had Catholic archdiocesan approval, Jean-Gaston Tremblay merged his religious community with the Apostles of Infinite Love and led it for a time. The Apostles of Infinite Love has attracted traditional Catholics unhappy with changes made during the Second Vatican Council.
Women play significant roles in the life of the Catholic Church, although excluded from the Catholic hierarchy of bishops, priests, and deacons. In the history of the Catholic Church, the church often influenced social attitudes toward women. Influential Catholic women have included theologians, abbesses, monarchs, missionaries, mystics, martyrs, scientists, nurses, hospital administrators, educationalists, religious sisters, Doctors of the Church, and canonised saints. Women constitute the majority of members of consecrated life in the Catholic Church: in 2010, there were around 721,935 professed women religious. Motherhood and family are given an exalted status in Catholicism, with The Blessed Virgin Mary holding a special place of veneration.
Road tolling to finance bridges, tunnels and roads has a long history in Norway. The cities Oslo, Bergen and Trondheim introduced toll rings between 1986 and 1991 as a means to discourage urban traffic and to finance infrastructure projects around those cities. Today toll rings circumscribe Oslo, Kristiansand, Stavanger, Haugesund, Bergen, Askøy, Bodø, Harstad, Grenland, Førde and Trondheim. Besides toll rings, road tolls are installed to finance certain road projects, and often also on the existing road to discourage people from using it. Some tolls use congestion pricing and/or environmentally differentiated toll rates.