The Right Reverend Sofie Petersen | |
---|---|
Bishop of Greenland | |
Church | Church of Denmark |
Installed | 1995 |
Term ended | 2020 |
Predecessor | Kristian Mørch |
Successor | Paneeraq Siegstad Munk |
Personal details | |
Born | Sofie Bodil Louise Lisbeth Petersen 23 November 1955 |
Nationality | Greenlandic |
Denomination | Lutheranism |
Spouse | Christian Tidemand (m. 1976) |
Education | Theology |
Alma mater | University of Copenhagen, 1986 |
Years active | 1987–present |
Title | Bishop |
Website | www.groenlandsstift.dk |
Sofie Petersen (born 1955) is a Greenlandic Lutheran bishop. [1]
She was born on 23 November 1955 in Maniitsoq, Greenland, Kingdom of Denmark. She studied theology and graduated from the University of Copenhagen in 1986. On 28 May 1995, at the age of 39, Petersen was ordained as the Bishop of Greenland in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Denmark. [2] She was ordained at Hans Egede Church, the cathedral of Greenland in the presence of Queen Margrethe II. [3] She is the second Inuit bishop and the second woman to become a bishop in the Danish Lutheran church. [4]
Petersen is an outspoken advocate for climate justice. [5] She worked closely with the Greenland's government to ensure the law would allow same-sex couples to marry in churches and other religious buildings. [6] She retired in December 2020.
Greenland is a North American autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is the largest country within the Kingdom and one of three countries which form the Kingdom, the others being Denmark proper and the Faroe Islands; the citizens of all three countries are citizens of Denmark. As Greenland is one of the Overseas Countries and Territories of the European Union, citizens of Greenland are also granted European Union citizenship. The capital and largest city of Greenland is Nuuk. Greenland lies between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. It is the world's largest island, as well as the northernmost area of the world – Kaffeklubben Island off the northern coast is the world's northernmost undisputed point of land, and Cape Morris Jesup on the mainland was thought to be so until the 1960s.
This is a demography of the population of Greenland including population density, ethnicity, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.
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. Nuuk is considered a modernized city after the policy began in 1950.
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The Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Denmark or National Church, sometimes called the Church of Denmark, is the established, state-supported church in Denmark. The supreme secular authority of the church is composed of the reigning monarch and Denmark's Parliament, the Folketing. As of 1 January 2023, 72.1% of the population of Denmark are members, though membership is voluntary.
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.
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The majority of the Greenlandic population is Christian and associates with the Church of Denmark via the Church of Greenland, which is Protestant in classification and Lutheran in orientation. The Church of Denmark is the established church through the Constitution of Denmark; this applies to all of the Kingdom of Denmark, except for the Faroe Islands, as the Church of the Faroe Islands became independent in 2007. But traditional Inuit spiritual beliefs remain strong in many of Greenland's remote communities.
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This is a timeline of notable moments in the history of women's ordination in the world's religious traditions. It is not an exhaustive list of all historic or contemporary ordinations of women.
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