Christianization Expansion






Establishments of National Church Systems


The Kings of Denmark, Norway and Sweden soon found out that they depended, at least in the early period of christianization, on foreign missionaries. These, again, were subject to an established church hierarchy. ADALBERT, Archbishop of Bremen, dreamt of expanding his archdiocese all over Scandinavia; this was not in the interest of Danish king SVEN ESTRIDSEN. He negotiated with the pope in order to establish an independent Danish archdiocese. His candidate for the position of archbishop, Absalon, however had to avoid travelling through Germany. Both the Emperor and archbishop Adalbert were against the success of his mission. In 1104, the archbishopric of LUND was established, creating Denmark as a separate church province, subject only to the pope. However, the nascent churches of Norway and Sweden were now part of the archdiocese of Lund. Norway was established as an archdiocese of it's own with seat in Nidaros (TRONDHJEM) in 1154, Sweden with seat in Uppsala in 1164. The Atlantic islands (the Faroes, Orkneys, Hebrides, Man, Iceland, Greenland) came under the Norwegian church, Gotland under the Swedish church.
In those days, symbols of christianity such as national saints were regarded important. Denmark (ST. KNUD), Norway (ST. OLAF) and Sweden (ST. ERIC) had kings sanctified, kings who had in common that they were christian and that they were killed in the struggle for power. Again, these sanctifications seem to have been motivated politically rather than because of religiosity.






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This page is part of World History at KMLA
First posted in 2000, last revised on November 8th 2004

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