The Church in Iceland

Extract

Attention has been focussed on this relatively far-away island owing to the fact that it celebrates this year the thousandth anniversary of its Parliament. For Catholics it is also a memorable summer as it sees the entry to his See of a first Icelandic Bishop since the ‘Reformation.’ The new Bishop of Holar is of Danish birth and has laboured for many years in Iceland. He has perforce to live away from his see. For Holar, in northern Iceland, which once had a fair cathedral and was a famous seat of Catholic learning is now only a name. I vividly remember arriving there in the late afterglow of a northern summer night after a long day’s ride culminating in a steep mountain slope even in August deep with snow. Holar lies far below in a fertile green valley watered by many streams. Just as Holar now possesses a Bishop and no cathedral, conversely the Faroe Isles, four hundred miles away, have a cathedral without a chief pastor.

At Kirkubae, south of Thorshavn, stands an unfinished stone building in Gothic style. It was never consecrated, and yet it has not been desecrated to any profane use. It remains roofless to the sky, a perpetual reminder of the faith which built it and of those who prevented its completion.