Stefnir Thorgilsson was one of the first Christian missionaries among the
Icelanders
Icelanders ( is, Íslendingar) are a North Germanic ethnic group and nation who are native to the island country of Iceland and speak Icelandic.
Icelanders established the country of Iceland in mid 930 AD when the Althing (Parliament) met for ...
at the end of the 10th century. He was born in Iceland. King
Olaf Tryggvason
Olaf Tryggvason (960s – 9 September 1000) was King of Norway from 995 to 1000. He was the son of Tryggvi Olafsson, king of Viken (Vingulmark, and Rånrike), and, according to later sagas, the great-grandson of Harald Fairhair, first King of N ...
,
king of Norway
The Norwegian monarch is the head of state of Norway, which is a constitutional and hereditary monarchy with a parliamentary system. The Norwegian monarchy can trace its line back to the reign of Harald Fairhair and the previous petty kingdoms ...
(r. 997-1000) ordered him to return to his homeland in order to proselytize among the Icelanders. He destroyed a number of heathen temples and idols, for which he was expelled from the island.
After the destruction of the pagan shrines, the
Althing
The Alþingi (''general meeting'' in Icelandic, , anglicised as ' or ') is the supreme national parliament of Iceland. It is one of the oldest surviving parliaments in the world. The Althing was founded in 930 at ("thing fields" or "assembly ...
reached agreement to declare Christians ''frændaskömm'' (a disgrace to kinsman). Based on this, Christians could be denounced by their own relatives. Additionally, Stefnir became an
outlaw
An outlaw, in its original and legal meaning, is a person declared as outside the protection of the law. In pre-modern societies, all legal protection was withdrawn from the criminal, so that anyone was legally empowered to persecute or kill them ...
and was forced to return to Norway.
See also
*
Christianisation of Iceland
Iceland was Christianized in the year 1000 CE, when Christianity became the religion by law. In Icelandic, this event is known as the ''kristnitaka'' (literally, "the taking of Christianity").
The vast majority of the initial settlers of Icel ...
*
Thangbrand
*
Thorvald Konradsson Thorvald Konradsson the Far Traveller () was one of the first Christian missionaries in Iceland and then in Belarus in the late 10th century. He was native to Iceland but went abroad where he was baptized by one Bishop Friedrich, a German. He r ...
Footnotes
References
*
*{{cite book , last=Curta , first=Florin , title=Great Events in Religion: An Encyclopedia of Pivotal Events in Religious History , date=2016 , publisher=ABC-CLIO , page=482 , isbn=9781610695664 , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dgF9DQAAQBAJ&pg=PA482 , access-date=30 August 2019
Christian missionaries in Iceland