The Catholic Missions in Iceland

Jon L. Frederiksen, "The Catholic Missions in Iceland," Irish Ecclesiastical Record, Fourth Series, Volume II. (1897) pp. 308-317.

Iceland, or Ultima Thule, as it was once supposed to be, has of late years begun to compete with the 'Sunny South' for the tourist's favour. The hotel at Spitzbergen, which is now an accomplished fact, has shown that a northerly climate need not necessarily drive away the globe-roaming southerner, or debar him from enjoying the wild rough beauty of Iceland. A visit to these shores may teach all comers the lesson of simplicity, and if the voyage do no more than show us that three-quarters of our supposed necessities of life are fetters we ourselves have hung about our being, our toils, even across an ill-humoured Atlantic, may not be wholly profitless.

On hearing the name of Iceland, most people at once picture a land of nothing but glaciers. Certainly there are plenty of glaciers; just enough, however, to give every part of the land a variety entirely its own. Beauty, light, grandeur here feast the eyes; but the land is barren withal rocks, and rocks again, and lava fields, where hot springs and boiling wells abound, and where, during the short summer time, there are only some patches of fresh green. Sheep from these scant pastures, and fish from the sea are all on which the Icelander can rely.

Why, then, did people choose a land like this as a home for themselves and their descendants? The question has often been put to me, and people may naturally be astonished. Why was it therefore? Because the great families of Norway, the proud Norsemen, were too fierce to serve a king. Why was it? Because they themselves were strong and wild as the island is. For poverty they had no fear. Could they not help themselves to the treasures of Europe, and every year sally forth to return with the spoils of the mainland? The winter was long, but they had secured the means of feasting.

The first inhabitants went over towards the end of the ninth century. Little more than a century later, all Icelanders were Christians. How this was brought about is, perhaps, one of the strangest pages in the history of conversion. After a while, a certain number of those who carried terror over Christian Europe went home with the Christian faith; a greater number still with Christian slaves. And so the moment clearly came nearer and nearer when Iceland should have to determine upon what should be the religion of the Island.

It was the year of Grace 1000. The people were gathered, as every year they were wont to gather, in the parliament valley (Thingvellir). Christians and pagans stood face to face grasping their weapons, ready to fight the question out, when the voice of reason prevailed, and the proposal to choose an arbiter was unanimously accepted. The religion of the whole people should be that which their arbiter settled. The man chosen was a pagan chief, and in the choice of him the Christians acquiesced. He stretched himself out on the ground, covered himself with a bearskin, and so remained motionless for three days. The Christians betook themselves to prayer. The pagan arbiter at the end of the third day arose, and declared that henceforth all Icelanders were to be Christians; and in this they all agreed.

As time went on the people became Christians by more than law. Comparatively numerous were the Christian establishments which arose and flourished all over the island. Two dioceses were founded, and ten monasteries; everywhere parish churches sprang up. The glorious ceremonies of the Catholic Church warmed the hearts under northern skies no less than in the 'Sunny South,' and her brilliant truths enlightened minds which nature had gifted with perspicacity and clearness.

Those were the palmy days of Iceland. Laymen and monks set to work, and wrote down the history of the country and of every family. Thus a series of 'sagas' was issued, which has no equal in any literature. They soon became the property of high and low, and are so to this day. Nearly every Icelander knows his family from the day they came over, and the old sagas are known by heart. At the same time, a body of Icelandic poets were continually visiting the courts of all northern Europe, and drinking deeply at the best literary fountains. Much of the poetry these writers created still exists. Some of their poems are beautiful religious flowers grown on the tree of Catholic faith. The most celebrated is the 'Lily,' which consists of a hundred verses in honour of our Blessed Lady. It is in every respect a masterpiece. 'All poets would like to have sung the "Lily,"' is an Islandic proverb. It was the work of a monk, and, like the Stabat Mater, was written in prison. It opened the door to the poet, and was the beginning of a new life.

Much has changed since then. The blood of the people is still the same, but not the vigour. And how could it be? The Icelander's life is not rosy, and the isolation which has preserved his old rich language pure and his old customs intact, has also kept out the stirring impulses of other nations. Once Christians, the Icelanders had to live on the resources of their own land, and it is no wonder if the old pirate people was far richer than their honest descendants.

Most of all the conditions of eternal life have changed, and the way in which the people of the island regard it. It is a sad story to read how the Danish King forced Protestant faith upon them, reluctant as they were. The last hero of faith and fatherland, and, at the same time, the last Catholic bishop, and last poet of the Middle Ages (Jon Arason), laid his old head on the block, and died a martyr (1551). Now they tell how his followers went to bring back his body. They killed the Danes, and brought their beloved bishop home to his church. Over the mountains the funeral procession went six days' walk. As the corpse appeared in sight of the church, the bell, the largest in Iceland, began to ring of itself, without being moved by any man. Wilder and wilder it rang until the corpse had entered the church; when suddenly the bell ceased, for it had burst, and fallen to pieces.

When I came over to Iceland this beautiful legend was told me; and I could not but feel the symbolism of the story. How could the poor people have more touchingly expressed their sorrowing fear, that the old truth which had rung forth to their fathers had become silent, perhaps, for ever. I could not but listen to it as a welcome from the very soul of the people to the faith of their fathers, and to me as the one who came to bring it back again after centuries. I am sure nobody tells the legend and gives it this meaning, but I am also sure I was right in understanding it in this sense. I think a Catholic priest can understand the language of the old Icelanders, and their broken Catholic hearts.

When I speak about my coming to Iceland, I am referring to a time about two years ago. Of course, God's Church had not forgotten the people in the far North; but intolerant laws, which the Icelanders had not made themselves, had closed the door to the old church. This was only changed in 1874, when the land got a free constitution; but, even then, circumstances did not permit the starting of the Icelandic Mission. Iceland belongs to Denmark, and Denmark itself had need enough of men and means for mission work at home, for it is itself a Protestant country, where Catholic faith has but recently begun to spread. Such considerations for a long time prevented the sending of a priest, in spite of Rome's insisting that one should be sent. At last, two years ago, Rome became so urgent that the Danish Bishop could but regard it as Heaven's will, and, consequently, trust in Providence. The present writer had the good fortune to be chosen for the post, for which old predilection had disposed his mind. I started from Copenhagen on the 27th September, 1895. The steamer had to go round the whole island, and we had storm all the while, so that it was only after twenty-nine days of sailing that I found myself in Reykjavik, the capital of the island, and the site of the future mission.

When the Norwegians came over to Iceland they found a little colony of Irish monks established there, near one of the northern bays, called to this day St. Patrick's Bay. They had sought, as it seems, in Iceland the peace which the Normans would not let them enjoy at home, and they were sorely disappointed, when seeing their persecutors land on that very spot which they had thought so safe as a refuge. I have not the material at hand to form any opinion on what Irish authors relate of SS. Ernulf and Buo.

But the connection between Ireland and Iceland, or rather between Irishmen and Icelanders, has left deeper traces than old chronicles. The Icelandic blood is blended with Irish blood, and this fact is easily explained. Most of the Norwegian chiefs touched Ireland on their way to Iceland; from Ireland they carried people off to be their slaves. These generally had their own small household; and when Iceland had become Christian they became the free ancestors to a great number of the later population of Iceland. This fact can be easily demonstrated by the two quite different types which, to the present day, have been preserved in Iceland - the Scandinavian and Irish, kept distinctly marked by racial antipathies. Only recently they have begun to intermarry freely; but up to a very short time the two races would have nothing to do with each other.

One might expect to find some traces of Irish mixed up with the old Norse language. This, however, is not the case. The poor Irish, men and women, who were torn away from their own country, rich perhaps, and possibly princes' children, when reduced to be miserable slaves, were forced to adopt the language of their victorious masters. What untold form of sorrow, and despairing anger, and broken hearts! One example, old sagas tell us, of an Irishwoman, a king's daughter, if I remember rightly, carried off to Iceland. She was of uncommon beauty even among the fair daughters of her race, and her captor married her. She became the mother of one of the proudest families in Iceland; but never one word was heard to fall from her lips during the many years of her married life.

The language adopted in Iceland was the ancient Norse, or, as it was then called, the Danish tongue. Of all Teutonic languages this is, doubtless, the most perfect in structure, and the richest in words - certainly one of the finest languages in the world. It is spoken now as much as it was a thousand years ago; and the simple peasant of Iceland reads the sagas, and partially knows them by heart. In all Scandinavia, Iceland excepted, the old tongue has changed. In Iceland alone, therefore, can we hear the language of our fathers; the language used by King Canutes, and once well known in Northumberland.

The political bonds between Denmark and Iceland are rather loose. Up to the year 1874 Iceland was considered as a province, and like other Danish provinces had to suffer under absolute kings' misgovernment; less, however, than any other Danish province. I state this, because F. Baumgartner in his Nordische Fahrten, makes himself reporter of complaints which are not so much those of the people as of extreme radical politicans, and often mere oratorical flights. Neither I nor any Dane has any interest in whitewashing kings who ruined our country, our language, our people; but I, as every Dane, must protest against the charges brought by a German writer who knows little of northern history, and only knew Iceland by a summer trip to Reykjavik, and the coast.

Iceland at the present moment has a parliament of its own, its own finance department, a governor who is an Icelander by birth, as all other officials; Icelanders share all civil rights, as all other Danish subjects, while they are free from all the latter's civil duties. Yet not all Icelanders are satisfied, though those who know most are also those who are generally best satisfied with the present state of things. Discontent, however, has the merit of providing matter for discussion to the members of parliament, and serves as pastime.

The place in which our present mission is established had been chosen some thirty years before by a French priest, who was, in fact, the first missionary in Iceland after the Reformation. As we owe to him, not only the good name he left in our favour, but also a beautiful example of patient waiting for the time of God, his name shall adorn these pages; he was called Abbé Bandoin. As above mentioned, there was no liberty of conscience in those days, no possibility of public service, less of preaching. Why then did he come over? No doubt, also in the hope of dawning freedom. But his first aim certainly was to offer the loving care of the Church to the French fishermen, who come over by thousands every summer. Eighteen years he led a life practically as a hermit, studied the language and the history of the people, whom he loved so intensely. Just when he had mastered all difficulties, and the day of freedom arose, a cancer brought him to his grave. Patience was the service God craved of him, and patience has the promise of eternal life.

As a visible souvenir of him, I found an old chapel, the poorest I have ever seen. Between his death and my arrival twenty years had elapsed, and the horror of desolation was complete. A month after my advent I had the consolation of getting a brother priest as my fellow-worker in this poor ruined vineyard. I had meantime cleaned the wretched little chapel as well as possible. We began preaching. Would people come? We had only one Catholic family. Would they be the only attendants? The wind blew through the wooden walls, the rain streamed through the ceiling. Would there come any Protestants? Indeed they came, came again the whole winter. They wondered to find Catholicity such plain Christianity instead of all the superstition they had been told it was. At every sermon the church was full. This was rather a surprise. Conversions we did not expect all at once; did not even wish them at once, preferring a solid ground to hasty building-up; and it was no disappointment that we had to wait.

Another surprise, which looked like a disappointment, was to find the Icelandic winter much milder than we supposed. Of course, Iceland is no Andalusia ; but in Iceland, too, summer follows on winter. Summer brings to these shores a congregation of fellow-believers - viz., some four or five thousand sailors - the French fishermen already mentioned. Poor people they are, even when in health, leading a life which could scarcely be harder, and more devoid of every elementary comfort. But it is absolutely sad even to think of their condition when ill. In the whole island, to begin with, there was only a single hospital. One may easily understand how reluctant the captains were to leave their fishing-banks, perhaps for weeks, for a sick man's sake. And even when they came to the hospital, the doctor was the only man who understood them. The thought, therefore, forced itself upon us to try to get up two small hospitals, one on the western shore, and one in the east. Another thing necessary was the building of a new church.

Begging and the kind dispositions of Providence have made it possible to us to accomplish these works. Church and hospitals are built and partly paid - for partly only, but neither Providence nor charity will fail us; the rest will come. Catholic Sisters of Mercy have arrived to help us, and are nursing the sick in the hospitals and in the homes. Sometimes they have to go on horseback over the mountains to the suffering. Charity has taught them to ride.

So we have not been without consolations. Also a conversion has been given us by heaven, and more are going on. A great comfort it is everytime either of us has the opportunity of administering the holy sacraments to dying fishermen, who might else have died as though they were not children of our warm-hearted mother the Catholic Church. However, such a death is sad enough, far away from wife and children, whose dear names we hear the poor fishermen call out in their delirium. Nothing is more touching than to see the dead man's companions gather in the church to the Requiem Mass. Their Sunday clothes are in their far-off little homes, their thoughts also. The tricolour covers the corpse, and the chant is better meant than executed. The Mass ended, the funeral procession goes to the churchyard, where the French have a corner of their own. Their number is great, who like this man left their home and beloved ones, hoping to see them again. Heaven did not endorse his au revoir. There he lies under a poor wooden cross. 'Marin Français' is all the explanation you find; and, perhaps, the relics of an artificial garland sent the year after his death by his wife. The wife probably was mad with grief when she got the news that the father of her children had already reposed some months in the barren cemetery of Reykjavik. But life was stronger than love. The children need a father, and another fisherman took the place at her side and in her heart, and the wooden cross in the far-off churchyard moulders away. At last God alone knows his tomb, and the resurrection-angel will find it out. Requiescat in pace.

One may ask why a poor mission should charge itself with the care of the French fishermen. The answer simply is that they are poor helpless Catholics, and that the priest has to take care of all the children of the Church. Catholic means embracing all nations. Moreover, the French have given all the means for the hospitals, and when we are forced to appeal to the charity of other nations too, that is for strictly missionary work.

There is another class of human beings in Iceland, who are in a still more pitiful condition, the lepers. There are at least two hundred of them in the island; that is to say, out of a population of seventy-five thousand. As the population is very scattered however, one may be long in Iceland without seeing any lepers. Yet the very existence of this awful plague must provoke the utmost pity. No beings are more worthy of pity than these poor lepers. Year after year they see their own body literally falling to pieces while yet alive. Sense after sense goes, and death comes upon them by slow and painful steps, until their existence during the last year is well-nigh insupportable for dreadful pain. Here assuredly is a grand work of charity to be taken up; and please God, when we get over the first difficulties we are obliged to conquer, we shall make some day an appeal to Christian charity in favour of the poor Icelandic lepers. This very year the Icelandic parliament is deliberating about the establishment of a lepers' hospital outside Reykjavik, and no doubt it will be granted, as it is commanded by necessity. But there will only be provision for sixty out of the two hundred lepers, and no place at all for those whom it might, perhaps, be possible to save. The means of the country do not allow us to think about an asylum for them all, still less about a house of cure. Now this is exactly what we desire to establish later on, such a little hospital where leprosy in its earliest stages could be treated. Such an institution would certainly save some from years of suffering; for a cure is, if rare, still possible. At least such charitable provision would he a consolation for the poor stricken sufferer, preventing him from immediate despair. Hope for the hopeless, health for some already marked out by death this seems to me a worthy aim, and I trust to God that in a short time it may be more than a dream.

Jon L. Frederiksen