1.
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Nidaros
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The Archdiocese of Nidaros was the metropolitan see covering Norway in the later Middle Ages. The see was the Nidaros Cathedral, in the city of Nidaros, the archdiocese existed from the middle of the twelfth century until the Protestant Reformation. In Norway, the kings who introduced Christianity which first became known to the people during their martial expeditions, the work of Christianization begun by Haakon the Good was carried on by Olaf Tryggvason and Olaf Haraldsson. Both were converted Vikings, the former having been baptized at Andover, England, by Aelfeah, Bishop of Winchester, King Olaf Haraldsson created an episcopal see at Nidaros, installing the monk Grimkill as bishop. Moreover, many English and German bishops and priests came to Norway, the Norwegian bishops were at first dependent on the Archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen, and afterwards on the Archbishop of Lund, Primate of Scandinavia. As the Norwegians wanted an archbishop of their own, Pope Eugene III, resolving to create a see at Nidaros, sent thither as legate Cardinal Nicholas of Albano. The legate installed Jon Birgerson, previously Bishop of Stavanger, as Archbishop of Nidaros, the bishops of Bergen, Faroe Diocese, Garðar, Greenland, Hamar, Hólar, Iceland, Orkney, Oslo, Skálholt, Iceland, and Stavanger became suffragans. Archbishop Birgerson was succeeded by Eysteinn Erlendsson, previously royal secretary and treasurer, a man of intellect, strong will, King Sverre wished to make the Church a tool of the temporal power, and the archbishop was compelled to flee from Norway to England. At last, when King Sverre attacked the legate, Pope Innocent III laid the king. King Haakon III, son and successor of King Sverre, hastened to make peace with the Church, to regulate ecclesiastical affairs, which had suffered during the struggles with Sverre, Pope Innocent IV in 1247 sent Cardinal William of Sabina as legate to Norway. He intervened against encroachments on the part of the bishops, reformed various abuses, owing in great measure to the papal legates, Norway became more closely linked with the supreme head of Christendom at Rome. Secular priests, Benedictines, Cistercians, Augustinians, Dominicans, archbishops Eilif Kortin, Paul Baardson, and Arne Vade were zealous churchmen. Provincial councils were held, at which efforts were made to eliminate abuses and to encourage Christian education. Nidaros, the metropolis of the province, was also the capital of Norway. The residence of the kings until 1217, it remained until the Reformation the heart, there was situated the tomb of St. Olaf, and around the patron of Norway, Rex perpetuus Norvegiae, the national and ecclesiastical life of the country was centred. The feast of St. Olaf rested near the altar, built in Roman style by King Olaf Kyrre, the cathedral had been enlarged by Archbishop Eystein in Gothic style. It was finished only in 1248 by Archbishop Sigurd Sim, although several times destroyed by fire, the ancient cathedral was restored each time until the Reformation in Norway. The reliquaries of St. Olaf and St. Augustine were taken away, sent to Copenhagen, the bones of St. Olaf were buried in the cathedral, and the place forgotten
2.
Nidaros Cathedral
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Nidaros Cathedral is a Church of Norway cathedral located in the city of Trondheim in Sør-Trøndelag county, Norway. Built over the site of Saint Olav, the king of Norway in the 11th century. It is the location for the consecration of the King of Norway. It was built from 1070 to 1300, and designated as the cathedral for the Diocese of Nidaros in 1152, after the Protestant Reformation, it was taken from the Roman Catholics by the Lutheran Church in 1537. It is the northernmost medieval cathedral in the world, Nidaros Cathedral was built beginning in 1070 to memorialize the burial place of Olav II of Norway, the king who was killed in 1030 in the Battle of Stiklestad. He was canonized as Saint Olav a year later by the bishop of Nidaros and it was designated the cathedral of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Nidaros from its establishment in 1152 until its abolition in 1537 under the Reformation. Since the Reformation, it has served as the cathedral of the Lutheran bishops of Trondheim in the Diocese of Nidaros, the architectural style of the cathedral is Romanesque and Gothic. Historically it has been an important destination for pilgrims coming from all of Northern Europe, along with Vår Frue Church, the cathedral is part of the Nidaros og Vår Frue parish in the Nidaros deanery in the Diocese of Nidaros. Work on the cathedral as a memorial to St. Olav started in 1070 and it was finished some time around 1300, nearly 150 years after being established as the cathedral of the diocese. The cathedral was damaged by fires in 1327 and again in 1531. The nave was destroyed and was not rebuilt until the restoration in early 1900s, in 1708, the church burned down completely except for the stone walls. It was struck by lightning in 1719, and was ravaged by fire. Major rebuilding and restoration of the started in 1869, initially led by architect Heinrich Ernst Schirmer. It was officially completed in 2001, maintenance of the cathedral is an ongoing process. The oldest parts of the cathedral consist of the octagon with its surrounding ambulatory and this was the site of the original high altar, with the reliquary casket of Saint Olav, and choir. Design of the octagon may have inspired by the Corona of Canterbury Cathedral. Similarly, the choir shows English influence, and appears to have been modeled after the Angel Choir of Lincoln Cathedral and it is joined to the octagon by a stone screen that fills the entire east side of the choir. Built into the side of the ambulatory is a small well
3.
Trondheim
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Trondheim, historically Kaupangen, Nidaros and Trondhjem, is a city and municipality in Sør-Trøndelag county, Norway. It has a population of 187,353, and is the third most populous municipality in Norway and it is the third largest city in the country, with a population of 169,972 inhabitants within the city borders. The city functions as the centre of Sør-Trøndelag county. Trondheim lies on the shore of Trondheim Fjord at the mouth of the river Nidelva. The settlement was founded in 997 as a trading post, from 1152 to 1537, the city was the seat of the Catholic Archdiocese of Nidaros, since then, it has remained the seat of the Lutheran Diocese of Nidaros and the Nidaros Cathedral. The current municipality dates from 1964, when Trondheim merged with Byneset, Leinstrand, Strinda, for the ecclesiastical history, see Archiepiscopate of Nidaros Trondheim was named Kaupangen by Viking King Olav Tryggvason in 997. Shortly thereafter it came to be called Nidaros, in the beginning it was frequently used as a military retainer of King Olav I. It was frequently used as the seat of the king, and was the capital of Norway until 1217, people have been living in the region for thousands of years as evidenced by the rock carvings in central Norway, the Nøstvet and Lihult cultures and the Corded Ware culture. In ancient times, the Kings of Norway were hailed at Øretinget in Trondheim, Harald Fairhair was hailed as the king here, as was his son, Haakon I, called the Good. The battle of Kalvskinnet took place in Trondheim in 1179, King Sverre Sigurdsson, some scholars believe that the famous Lewis chessmen, 12th-century chess pieces carved from walrus ivory found in the Hebrides and now at the British Museum, may have been made in Trondheim. Trondheim was the seat of the Archdiocese of Nidaros for Norway from 1152, due to the introduction of Lutheran Protestantism in 1537, the last Archbishop, Olav Engelbrektsson, had to flee from the city to the Netherlands, where he died in present-day Lier, Belgium. The city has experienced major fires. Since much of the city was made of wooden buildings, many of the fires caused severe damage. Great fires ravaged the city in 1598,1651,1681,1708, twice in 1717,1742,1788,1841 and 1842, however, the 1651 fire destroyed 90% of all buildings within the city limits. The fire in 1681 led to an almost total reconstruction of the city, overseen by General Johan Caspar von Cicignon, broad avenues like Munkegaten were created, with no regard for property rights, in order to stop the next fire. At the time, the city had a population of roughly 8000 inhabitants, after the Treaty of Roskilde on 26 February 1658, Trondheim and the rest of Trøndelag, became Swedish territory for a brief period, but the area was reconquered 10 months later. The conflict was settled by the Treaty of Copenhagen on 27 May 1660. During World War II, Trondheim was occupied by Nazi Germany from 9 April 1940, the home of the most notorious Norwegian Gestapo agent, Henry Rinnan, was in Trondheim
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Norway
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The Antarctic Peter I Island and the sub-Antarctic Bouvet Island are dependent territories and thus not considered part of the Kingdom. Norway also lays claim to a section of Antarctica known as Queen Maud Land, until 1814, the kingdom included the Faroe Islands, Greenland, and Iceland. It also included Isle of Man until 1266, Shetland and Orkney until 1468, Norway has a total area of 385,252 square kilometres and a population of 5,258,317. The country shares a long border with Sweden. Norway is bordered by Finland and Russia to the north-east, Norway has an extensive coastline, facing the North Atlantic Ocean and the Barents Sea. King Harald V of the Dano-German House of Glücksburg is the current King of Norway, erna Solberg became Prime Minister in 2013, replacing Jens Stoltenberg. A constitutional monarchy, Norway divides state power between the Parliament, the Cabinet and the Supreme Court, as determined by the 1814 Constitution, the kingdom is established as a merger of several petty kingdoms. By the traditional count from the year 872, the kingdom has existed continuously for 1,144 years, Norway has both administrative and political subdivisions on two levels, counties and municipalities. The Sámi people have an amount of self-determination and influence over traditional territories through the Sámi Parliament. Norway maintains close ties with the European Union and the United States, the country maintains a combination of market economy and a Nordic welfare model with universal health care and a comprehensive social security system. Norway has extensive reserves of petroleum, natural gas, minerals, lumber, seafood, the petroleum industry accounts for around a quarter of the countrys gross domestic product. On a per-capita basis, Norway is the worlds largest producer of oil, the country has the fourth-highest per capita income in the world on the World Bank and IMF lists. On the CIAs GDP per capita list which includes territories and some regions, from 2001 to 2006, and then again from 2009 to 2017, Norway had the highest Human Development Index ranking in the world. It also has the highest inequality-adjusted ranking, Norway ranks first on the World Happiness Report, the OECD Better Life Index, the Index of Public Integrity and the Democracy Index. Norway has two names, Noreg in Nynorsk and Norge in Bokmål. The name Norway comes from the Old English word Norðrveg mentioned in 880, meaning way or way leading to the north. In contrasting with suðrvegar southern way for Germany, and austrvegr eastern way for the Baltic, the Anglo-Saxon of Britain also referred to the kingdom of Norway in 880 as Norðmanna land. This was the area of Harald Fairhair, the first king of Norway, and because of him
5.
Church of Norway
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The Church of Norway, from 2017 called the Peoples Church, is a Lutheran denomination of Protestant Christianity that serves as the peoples church and the largest church in Norway. The church was established after the Lutheran reformation in Denmark–Norway in 1536–1537 broke ties with the Holy See, the church professes the Lutheran Christian faith, with its foundation on the Bible, the Apostles, Nicene and Athanasian Creeds, Luthers Small Catechism and the Augsburg Confession. The church is a member of the Porvoo Communion with 12 other churches and it has also signed some other ecumenical texts, including the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification with the Roman Catholic Church. Until 1969, the name for administrative purposes was simply the State Church or sometimes just the Church. While the church remains state-funded and integrated in the administration with a special constitutional role, it is largely self-governing in doctrinal matters. On 27 May,2016, Stortinget passed a new bill that establishes the Church of Norway as an independent legal entity rather than a branch of the civil service, the Church of Norway officially ceased to be the state church on January 1,2017. Until 1845 the Church of Norway was the only religious organization in Norway. Dissenterloven was a passed by the Storting on 16 July 1845 that allowed the establishment of alternative religious bodies. This bill was in 1969 replaced by Lov om trudomssamfunn og ymist anna, until 2012 the constitutional head of the church was the King of Norway, who is obliged to profess himself a Lutheran. After the constitutional amendment of May 21,2012, the church is self-governed with regard to doctrinal issues, bishops and priests are civil servants also after the 2012 constitutional reform. Each parish has an autonomous administration, the state itself does not administer church buildings, buildings and adjacent land instead belong to the parish as an independent public institution. The Minister of Church Affairs, Trond Giske, was responsible for proposing the 2012 amendments, the church itself explained that, In 2012 the Parliament changed the constitution such that Norway no longer has a public religion. The Church of Norway can accordingly no longer be labeled as state church, a bill passed in 2016 created the Church of Norway as an independent legal entity, effective from 1 January 2017. The church has a structure, with 1,284 parishes,106 deaneries,11 dioceses and since 2 October 2011. The dioceses are – according to the rank of the five historic sees and then according to age, Nidaros, seated in Trondheim, bishops, Presiding Bishop of Nidaros and Bishop of Nidaros Cathedral Deanery Helga Haugland Byfuglien, Bishop of Nidaros Tor Singsaas. Bjørgvin, seated in Bergen, covering the counties of Hordaland, Oslo, seated in Oslo, covering Oslo and parts of the county of Akershus. Stavanger, seated in Stavanger, covering the county of Rogaland, Hamar, seated in Hamar, covering the counties of Hedmark and Oppland. Nord-Hålogaland, seated in Tromsø, covering the counties of Troms and Finnmark, agder og Telemark, seated in Kristiansand, covering the counties of Vest-Agder, Aust-Agder and Telemark
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Diocese
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The word diocese is derived from the Greek term διοίκησις meaning administration. When now used in a sense, it refers to a territorial unit of administration. This structure of governance is known as episcopal polity. The word diocesan means relating or pertaining to a diocese and it can also be used as a noun meaning the bishop who has the principal supervision of a diocese. An archdiocese is more significant than a diocese, an archdiocese is presided over by an archbishop whose see may have or have had importance due to size or historical significance. The archbishop may have authority over any other suffragan bishops. In the Latter Day Saint movement, the bishopric is used to describe the bishop himself. Especially in the Middle Ages, some bishops held political as well as religious authority within their dioceses, in the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associated in a larger unit, the diocese. With the adoption of Christianity as the Empires official religion in the 4th century, a formal church hierarchy was set up, parallel to the civil administration, whose areas of responsibility often coincided. With the collapse of the Western Empire in the 5th century, a similar, though less pronounced, development occurred in the East, where the Roman administrative apparatus was largely retained by the Byzantine Empire. In modern times, many dioceses, though later subdivided, have preserved the boundaries of a long-vanished Roman administrative division, modern usage of diocese tends to refer to the sphere of a bishops jurisdiction. As of January 2015, in the Catholic Church there are 2,851 regular dioceses,1 papal see,641 archdioceses and 2,209 dioceses in the world, in the Eastern rites in communion with the Pope, the equivalent unit is called an eparchy. Eastern Orthodoxy calls dioceses metropoleis in the Greek tradition or eparchies in the Slavic tradition, after the Reformation, the Church of England retained the existing diocesan structure which remains throughout the Anglican Communion. The one change is that the areas administered under the Archbishop of Canterbury and Archbishop of York are properly referred to as provinces and this usage is relatively common in the Anglican Communion. Certain Lutheran denominations such as the Church of Sweden do have individual dioceses similar to Roman Catholics and these dioceses and archdioceses are under the government of a bishop. Other Lutheran bodies and synods that have dioceses and bishops include the Church of Denmark, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, the Evangelical Church in Germany, rather, it is divided into a middle judicatory. The Lutheran Church-International, based in Springfield, Illinois, presently uses a traditional diocesan structure and its current president is Archbishop Robert W. Hotes. The Church of God in Christ has dioceses throughout the United States, in the COGIC, each state is divided up into at least three dioceses that are all led by a bishop, but some states as many as seven dioceses
7.
Lutheranism
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Lutheranism is a major branch of Protestant Christianity which identifies with the theology of Martin Luther, a German friar, ecclesiastical reformer and theologian. Luthers efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched the Protestant Reformation in the German-speaking territories of the Holy Roman Empire. Lutheranism advocates a doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone on the basis of Scripture alone and this is in contrast to the belief of the Catholic Church, defined at the Council of Trent, concerning authority coming from both the Scriptures and Tradition. In addition, Lutheranism accepts the teachings of the first seven ecumenical councils of the undivided Christian Church, unlike Calvinism, Lutherans retain many of the liturgical practices and sacramental teachings of the pre-Reformation Church, with a particular emphasis on the Eucharist, or Lords Supper. Lutheran theology differs from Reformed theology in Christology, the purpose of Gods Law, the grace, the concept of perseverance of the saints. Today, Lutheranism is one of the largest denominations of Protestantism, with approximately 80 million adherents, it constitutes the third most common Protestant denomination after historically Pentecostal denominations and Anglicanism. The Lutheran World Federation, the largest communion of Lutheran churches, Other Lutheran organizations include the International Lutheran Council and the Confessional Evangelical Lutheran Conference, as well as independent churches. The name Lutheran originated as a term used against Luther by German Scholastic theologian Dr. Johann Maier von Eck during the Leipzig Debate in July 1519. Eck and other Catholics followed the practice of naming a heresy after its leader. Martin Luther always disliked the term Lutheran, preferring the term Evangelical, which was derived from euangelion, the followers of John Calvin, Huldrych Zwingli, and other theologians linked to the Reformed tradition also began to use that term. To distinguish the two groups, others began to refer to the two groups as Evangelical Lutheran and Evangelical Reformed. As time passed by, the word Evangelical was dropped, Lutherans themselves began to use the term Lutheran in the middle of the 16th century, in order to distinguish themselves from other groups such as the Philippists and Calvinists. In 1597, theologians in Wittenberg defined the title Lutheran as referring to the true church, Lutheranism has its roots in the work of Martin Luther, who sought to reform the Western Church to what he considered a more biblical foundation. Lutheranism spread through all of Scandinavia during the 16th century, as the monarch of Denmark–Norway, through Baltic-German and Swedish rule, Lutheranism also spread into Estonia and Latvia. Since 1520, regular Lutheran services have been held in Copenhagen, under the reign of Frederick I, Denmark-Norway remained officially Catholic. Although Frederick initially pledged to persecute Lutherans, he adopted a policy of protecting Lutheran preachers and reformers. During Fredericks reign, Lutheranism made significant inroads in Denmark, at an open meeting in Copenhagen attended by the king in 1536, the people shouted, We will stand by the holy Gospel, and do not want such bishops anymore. Fredericks son Christian was openly Lutheran, which prevented his election to the throne upon his fathers death, however, following his victory in the civil war that followed, in 1537 he became Christian III and advanced the Reformation in Denmark-Norway
