The Icelandic Evangelical Lutheran Synod of America was a Lutheran church body in North America. The synod was founded in June 1885 in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The early churches in this body were located in Manitoba and North Dakota. Later churches could be found in Minnesota and Washington in the United States and in Alberta, British Columbia, and Saskatchewan in Canada. In 1910, the synod trained Steingrímur Octavius Thorlakson, a teacher from Manitoba, to serve as a missionary in

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. Thorlakson arrived in Japan with his wife, Carolina Kristin Thorlakson, in 1916, and left in 1941 due to the

Pacific War The Pacific War, sometimes called the Asia–Pacific War, was the theater of World War II that was fought in Asia, the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and Oceania. It was geographically the largest theater of the war, including the vast ...

. The synod was never a large synod. It had trouble reaching out to the small number of Icelandic immigrants spread across North America. In 1916, the synod had 49 congregations and 6,176 members in total. The synod joined the United Lutheran Church in America in 1942, remaining as a separate synod in that denomination. When the United Lutheran Church in America became part of the Lutheran Church in America, the Icelandic Synod was dissolved and the member churches were placed in geographical synods. In 1951, the Icelandic Synod had 4 pastors, 12 congregations, and 1,568 members. In 1962, the United Lutheran Church in America became part of the new Lutheran Church in America. On January 1, 1988, the Lutheran Church in America ceased to exist when it, along with the American Lutheran Church and the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches, joined to form the

Evangelical Lutheran Church in America The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is a mainline Protestant Lutheran church headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. The ELCA was officially formed on January 1, 1988, by the merging of three Lutheran church bodies. , it has approxim ...

, today the largest Lutheran church body in the United States.

Presidents of the synod

* 1885–1908: Jon Bjarnason * 1908–1921: Bjorn B. Jonsson * 1921–1923: N. S. Thorlaksson * 1923–1942: Kristinn K. Olafson

References

Footnotes

Bibliography

* * * * History of Christianity in the United States Evangelical Lutheran Church in America predecessor churches Icelandic-American history Lutheran denominations established in the 19th century Religious organizations established in 1885 1885 establishments in Canada Lutheran denominations in North America {{Lutheran-stub