The Diocese of Bjørgvin ( no, Bjørgvin bispedømme) is one of the 11

diocese In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associ ...

s that make up the

Church of Norway The Church of Norway ( nb, Den norske kirke, nn, Den norske kyrkja, se, Norgga girku, sma, Nöörjen gærhkoe) is an evangelical Lutheran denomination of Protestant Christianity and by far the largest Christian church in Norway. The church ...

. It includes all of the churches located in the county of

Vestland Vestland is a Counties of Norway, county in Norway established on 1 January 2020. The county is located in Western Norway and it is centred around the city of Bergen, Norway's second largest city. The administrative centre of the county is the cit ...

in Western Norway. The cathedral city is

Bergen Bergen (), historically Bjørgvin, is a city and municipalities of Norway, municipality in Vestland county on the Western Norway, west coast of Norway. , its population is roughly 285,900. Bergen is the list of towns and cities in Norway, secon ...

, Norway's second largest city.

Bergen Cathedral Bergen Cathedral ( no, Bergen domkirke) is a cathedral in the city of Bergen in Vestland county, Norway. It is the episcopal seat of the Diocese of Bjørgvin as well as the seat of the "Bergen domkirke" parish and the seat of the Bergen domprosti ...

, formerly the Church of Saint Olaf, serves as the seat of the presiding Bishop. The bishop since 2008 has been Halvor Nordhaug.

History

Prior to 1536, the state religion of Norway was

Roman Catholicism The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

, but the government of the Kingdom of Denmark-Norway joined in with the

Protestant Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and i ...

and in 1536 it declared itself to be

Lutheran Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched ...

, and the

was formed. In 1537, the diocese of Bjørgvin consisted of the (modern) counties of

Hordaland Hordaland () was a county in Norway, bordering Sogn og Fjordane, Buskerud, Telemark, and Rogaland counties. Hordaland was the third largest county, after Akershus and Oslo, by population. The county government was the Hordaland County Municipa ...

and Sogn og Fjordane (with exception of the parishes of Eidfjord and Røldal). The region of Sunnmøre (to the north) was transferred from the

Diocese of Nidaros Nidaros is a diocese in the Lutheran Church of Norway. It covers Trøndelag county in Central Norway and its cathedral city is Trondheim, which houses the well-known Nidaros Cathedral. Since 10 September 2017, the Bishop of Nidaros is Herborg ...

to the Diocese of Bjørgvin in 1622. The parish of Eidfjord was transferred from the

Diocese of Stavanger The Diocese of Stavanger ( no, Stavanger bispedømme) is a diocese in the Church of Norway. It covers all of Rogaland county in western Norway. The cathedral city is Stavanger, where the Stavanger Cathedral is located. The bishop is Anne Lise � ...

to Bjørgvin in 1630. The parish of Røldal was transferred from the Diocese of Kristiansand to Bjørgvin in 1863. The Sunnmøre region was removed from the Diocese of Bjørgvin in 1983 when it, along with the regions of Nordmøre and Romsdal (from the

), were established as a separate diocese, the Diocese of Møre.

Name

The

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlement ...

form of the name for Bergen was ''Bjǫrgvin''. The first element is ''berg'' or ''bjǫrg'', which translates as "

mountain A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock. Although definitions vary, a mountain may differ from a plateau in having a limited summit area, and is usually higher ...

". The last element is ''vin'', which translates as "

meadow A meadow ( ) is an open habitat, or field, vegetated by grasses, herbs, and other non- woody plants. Trees or shrubs may sparsely populate meadows, as long as these areas maintain an open character. Meadows may be naturally occurring or arti ...

". It is an old form of the name for the present-day city of

Structure

The Diocese of Bjørgvin is divided into ten deaneries ( no, Prosti) in the new

county. Each deanery corresponds to one or more municipalities in the diocese. Each municipality is further divided into one or more

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or ...

es which each contain one or more congregations. See each municipality below for lists of churches and parishes within them.

Bishops

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bjoergvin, Diocese Of Church of Norway dioceses Organisations based in Bergen Vestland