Christianization of Iceland

Iceland was legally Christianized in the year 1000 CE, setting Christianity as the official religion of Iceland through a vote by the Althing (Icelandic parliament). In Icelandic, this event is known as the kristnitaka (literally, 'the taking of Christianity').

The vast majority of the initial settlers of Iceland during the settlement of Iceland in the 9th and 10th centuries CE were pagan, worshipping the Norse gods. Beginning in 980 CE, Iceland was visited by several Christian missionaries who had little success in their goal of converting the Icelandic people to Christianity; when Olaf Tryggvason (King of Norway from 995 to 1000 CE) ascended to the throne, he applied more pressure for conversion to Christianity, and the two rival religions soon divided the country and threatened civil war.

After war broke out in Denmark and Norway, the matter was submitted to arbitration at the Althing. Law speaker and pagan Thorgeir Thorkelsson proposed "one law and one religion" after which baptism and conversion to Christianity became compulsory. Ari Thorgilsson's Book of the Icelanders, the oldest indigenous account of Iceland's Christianization, describes how Icelanders agreed to convert to Christianity through a bargain whereby some pragmatic concessions were granted to the pagans in exchange for converting.