Religion and religious communities on the Faroe Islands

The census on the 25th of May 2020 showed that 79.1 % of the population were members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. There were large local differences. The lowest membership percentage was found in Norðoyggjar eastern parish at 62.1 % and the highest was found in Norðurstreymoy’s eastern parish at 91.3 %. The declining membership numbers can be ascribed to a large number of Free Church members, growing secularisation and an increasing influx of residents with other ethnic and religious backgrounds.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church – from the Reformation to the year 1800

Parish clerk service in Sands Kirkja 2nd Sunday in Advent 2021. Note the red ribbons that restrict access to the pews as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. JÁKUP REINERT HANSEN

The exact year in which the Reformation was introduced in the Faroe Islands is unknown; but it is known that Jens Gregersøn Riber was appointed superintendent in 1540. He was appointed bishop of Stavanger in 1557, and the Faroe Islands became a deanery under the Diocese of Bergen. When the trade on the Faroe Islands passed to Copenhagen in 1620, the deanery was placed under the Diocese of Zealand. When the Diocese of Copenhagen was established in 1923, the Faroe Islands were included.

The ecclesiastical structure seemed to find its shape after the Reformation and remained unchanged for the next 350 years with a total of 39 churches and seven parishes: Norðoyggjar, Eysturoy, Norðurstreymoy, Vágar, Southern Streymoy, Sandoy and Suðuroy. The seven vicars each had their own vicarage, and in 1632 they were also granted annexefarms bestowed on a clergyman’s widow – also known as ‘mercy-farms’. These served as dower houses or residences for the curate and could be granted by the bishop for reasons of age or illness. Most curates took over the office upon the death of the vicar, and therefore a great deal of continuity is seen in the parish service. The Lutheran vicarages became part of the cultural landscape, and many people can trace their family back to one or more significant vicars.

With the many small villages and remote islands, the vicars did not have the opportunity to visit all their parishioners very often. Some churches were visited by the vicar six times a year and others only two or three times. When the vicar came to the church, he held a service with confession and communion, baptism, presentation of privately baptised children and churching (the ritual at the church the first time a woman went to church after having given birth), marriage and funeral. If anyone had died and been buried since the last time, the vicar would officiate at the graveside ceremony. Confirmation was introduced in 1736, but even before that time, the vicars had to supervise the Christian education of children.

A large part of church life had to be left to voluntary lay people. Usually, there were two churchwardens at each church who, besides being responsible for the maintenance and finances of the church building, also presided over the regular service with the reading from a book of sermons in the absence of the vicar. The vicars started keeping church registers around the year 1700. The preserved probation registers from the same time document the widespread use of reading among the population with a large and varied supply of religious books in private ownership. This primarily applies to hymnals and book of sermons, but also catechisms and prayer and devotional books. As a result, the spread of the Lutheran doctrine and the high level of education of the people can be ascribed to home education and reading just as much as the efforts of the vicars. Over the centuries, theological directions and trends reached the Faroe Islands both through the vicars and through the books that were read. A royal decree on the lay service from 1765 following a book gift to all churches meant that the orthodox piety with Brochmand’s sermons (originally from 1635‑38) and Kingo’s hymn book from 1699 came to influence the population right up to the 20th century.

The ecclesiastical administration was the responsibility of diocesan authority consisting of a bishop and prefect, both of whom were in Copenhagen. Locally, the Faroe Islands had an administrative officer and a dean, who were appointed by the king on the recommendation of the vicars and the vote of the bishop. The vicars met in Tórshavn at ólavsøka for the annual clerical conference with an opening service, and the dean announced the laws and decrees that the bishop had sent with the spring ships. If major personal cases were to be dealt with, a consistory court was set up.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church – from the year 1800 to today

In 1990, the Faroe Islands became an independent diocese, and Havnar Kirkja in Tórshavn became the cathedral of the Faroe Islands. The photo shows a confirmation in the church in 2007, the same year that the Evangelical Lutheran Church passed to home rule. ÓLAVUR FREDERIKSEN

When the Faroe Islands became a Danish administrative district after the Treaty of Kiel in 1814, it brought about a number of changes in the ecclesiastical matters. The vicar positions were now filled with young men who returned to Denmark after five or six years, just as the deans could expect a good position in Denmark after a period on the islands. Among the currents that the young vicars brought to the islands were both rationalism, romanticism, Grundtvigianism and the folk high school movement. However, in particular the dawning nationalism and the sense for the uniqueness of the Faroese language should be mentioned. The Danish Bible Society, which was founded in 1814, published Pastor Schrøter’s translation of the Gospel of Matthew in 1823. At an early stage, the church was directly involved in the fight for the mother tongue, and permission to increasingly use Faroese as the language of church service was given in the versions of the act on parochial church councils that came into effect from 1903 after consideration in the Løgting. The necessary books were largely due to the dean J. Dahl, who translated both the Church Order (authorised in 1930), The New Testament (1937) and the Service Book (1939). His two volumes of Faroese sermon collections for use at the parish clerk service were published in 1934 and 1948. Although Faroese hymns were already written in the 1890s, the first Faroese hymnal was not authorised until 1956, while the entire Bible was available in translation from the original languages in 1961. The Faroese Bible Society was founded in 2012 and is about to authorise a new translation.

The act on parochial church councils placed responsibility for the church buildings and their finances with the parochial church councils, and an act from 1924 placed supervision with the Løgting. In 1995, an association of members of the parochial church councils was founded. This gave the established church democracy a voice in relation to the country’s authorities and it publishes the magazine Kirkjutíðindi.

The desire for greater independence of the church was seen throughout the 20th century, but only gained ground in 1963, when the Faroese dean was appointed vice-bishop under the bishop of Copenhagen. In connection with the episcopal election in 1990, the position was changed to bishop, and at the same time, the Faroe Islands became an independent diocese in the established church of Denmark with a dean of the cathedral, deanery councils and diocesan authority. At ólavsøka in 2007, the Løgting took over both the administrative and financial responsibility for the Evangelical Lutheran Church, and the entire legislation was gradually updated with Løgting acts. The tasks relating to the Evangelical Lutheran Church, which according to Danish legislation are undertaken by the king, are now divided between the Prime Minister of the Faroe Islands – the løgmaður – (appointment of bishop and dean, authorisation of the church’s holy books) and the minister for cultural affairs (appointment of vicars, establishment and change of parishes and offices, etc.). In addition to the bishop and dean, there were a total of 26 vicars in 2020, including a diocesan vicar and a prison and hospital chaplain. In 2021, the country’s first integration vicar was appointed. A vicar responsible for the Faroese in Denmark is employed under the Diocese of Copenhagen. The total budget for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in 2019 was just under DKK 70 million, and the Løgting’s share of this accounted for 13.6 %. The diocesan authority now consists of the bishop, a civil servant appointed by the minister for cultural affairs and a member elected by the parochial church council members. The vicars are predominantly Faroese and if not, they must be able to demonstrate an adequate understanding of the Faroese language after two years of employment. When it is not possible for the vicar to preach, parish clerk service is still held in most churches.

Home Mission – the evangelical branch of the Established Church

Around the year 1900, the Home Mission began its work in the Faroe Islands, first with Danish vicars and from 1904 with posted home missionaries. From 1924, the local work was led by a community council under the central board in Denmark. In 1990, the community council became the central board of the Faroese Heimamissiónin and took over responsibility for the work, and this work, focusing on the Home Mission, children and youth, the Missions to Seamen and the Foreign Missions, still takes place under the framework of and in collaboration with the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Today, the Home Mission has a number of employees, a total of about ten full-time employees, including four home missionaries and one seaman missionary. There are 35 mission houses spread across the country and local work is carried out in another ten villages. The work is managed from the large camp centre in Nesvík, which was established in 1993 and has several large meeting rooms and space for 250 overnight guests. Similar work, Kirkjuliga Missiónsfelagið with mission houses in Tórshavn and Klaksvík, was founded in 1947 and focus on the foreign mission. There are independent YMCA and YWCA departments in Tórshavn with their own buildings. A number of the Faroese vicars have a personal connection to the ecclesiastical association work.

Other religious communities outside the Evangelical Lutheran Church

Shortly after freedom of religion was introduced with the Danish Constitutional Act of 1849, emissaries from other churches and religious communities visited the Faroe Islands, including the Catholic Church. Most of the large evangelical religious communities, of which there are quite a few in the Faroe Islands, are free and independent churches and congregations. People belong to a movement or direction without being organisationally or structurally part of a traditional church community. In general, these free churches focus on personal conversion, the importance of the Bible for the individual and the personal Christian life. The first free church movements came to the country in the mid-1800s. Quakers from England came to the Faroe Islands on a mission trip in 1862, and they held meetings in large parts of the country. However, no church was established after this visit.

The Catholic Church

The Catholic Church was established in Tórshavn in 1857, and a church was built in 1859. As early as 1871, however, the work had to be abandoned. At the behest of Cardinal van Rossum, who visited the Faroe Islands on his way to Iceland in 1929, two Franciscan sisters were sent in 1931. In the same year, they opened the country’s first kindergarten, in 1933 a church was inaugurated and in 1934 a private independent school. The large building complex near the centre of Tórshavn, which also housed a convent for the up to 23 nuns, was designed by H.C.W. Tórgarð and is still there. The municipality took over the school in 1985, after a new monastery had been built in 1980. There are now five sisters left. The Mariukirkjan church next to the monastery, designed by Árni Winther and decorated by Faroese and Danish artists, was inaugurated in 1987. The congregation, which is part of the Catholic Church in Denmark, had 270 members in 2019. A good third of them were Faroese, while the others represented 24 different nationalities.

Brøðrasamkomur (the Brethren congregations, Plymouth Brethren)

In 1865, the Scottish missionary William G. Sloan of the Plymouth Brethren movement began his work in the Faroe Islands. Two decades after Sloan’s arrival, the movement started to grow, and today Brøðrasamkomur has about 5,500 members and 29 congregations spread over most of the islands, and it is by far the largest free church in the country. In recent years, these congregations have become less uniform, especially in terms of meeting types. The largest congregations are Ebenezer in Tórshavn, Betesda in Klaksvík and Lívdin in Hoyvík. Activities closely associated with the Brethren congregations include the large camp centre Zarepta in Vatnsoyrar and the private independent continuation school Brúgvin in Skálavík.

Charismatic free churches

The church of the Pentecostal movement City Church in Tórshavn. The buildings of the free churches are simple and functional and without special references to traditional church architecture, just as the liturgical form of the service is free. ÓLAVUR FREDERIKSEN, 2020

The charismatic movement began in the United States in the 1960s. In the Faroe Islands, this revival affected a large part of Christendom, primarily within the Evangelical Lutheran Church, and it had particularly strong influence in the 1970s and 1980s. In the 1980s, a large conference tent in the small village of Gøtueiði became the centre of the charismatic revival, which continued until the mid-1990s. Afterwards, meetings and other activities were moved to free churches and a few mission houses, e.g. the Lebanon mission house in Sørvágur, which was an active part of the movement.

The free churches Soli Deo Gloria in Klaksvík, Oasan in Hoyvík and Keldan in Skálafjørður have their roots in the charismatic movement. The latter is the largest charismatic free church in the Faroe Islands; it was established in 1987 and is believed to have 300‑400 members. The church runs a private independent school with about 100 pupils.

Pentecostal congregations

The first missionaries from the Pentecostal Movement came to the Faroe Islands in the 1920s. It was Swedish missionaries who visited the Faroe Islands on their journeys to Iceland, and the first was Erik Åsbö. The first Pentecostal congregation was established in Tórshavn in 1936 by the Norwegian pioneer T.B. Barratt. Examples of congregations that have their roots in the Pentecostal Movement are Filadelfia and City Church (formerly Evangeliihúsið) in Tórshavn and Húsið Vón (formerly Betania) in Skopun.

Salvation Army

The international movement, the Salvation Army, came to the Faroe Islands in 1924. There is a corps in Tórshavn and one in Vágur. The Salvation Army carries out extensive social work and helps, for example, the homeless and young people who have challenges with alcohol and drug addiction.

Other free churches

Other free churches are Lívsins Orð in Saltangará, Karis in Klaksvík, Immanuel and Gleðiboð in Hoyvík and Fríkirkjan við Gjónna in Miðvágur. The Adventists ran a private independent school at Hoyvíkstjørn in Tórshavn from 1966 to 2014. The church in the same place dates back to 1978 and replaced an older building in the town from the 1930s.

Non-Christian religious communities

Statistics Faroe Islands only registers religious affiliation for members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. However, in connection with the 2011 census, 94 % of all people over the age of 15 took the opportunity to state which faith or religious community they belonged to. 126 persons indicated that they were members of Jehovah’s Witnesses, who have several Kingdom Halls, 23 were Muslim, seven were Hindu, 66 were Buddhist, 12 were Jewish, 13 were Baha’i, three were Sikh, while 1,397 stated that they were not believers. After 2010, both an atheist and a humanist association were formed.

Victor Danielsen

Victor Danielsen (1894‑1961) was born in Søldarfjørður, where his father was a sheriff. He was the youngest of seven siblings. The mother died in childbirth, and an aunt stepped in as caregiver.

Victor Danielsen graduated as a teacher from the Teachers’ School in Tórshavn in 1914 with the best exam of the class, only 20 years old. He was strongly spiritually influenced by the evangelical preacher J.C.V. Ryving-Jensen.

After being a teacher for half a year, he left teaching to become a missionary. In 1915, he left the Evangelical Lutheran Church and became part of the Brethren congregation, and in 1916, he was baptised in the fjord off Søldarfjørður.

For the rest of his life, he remained a very central and active figure in the Brethren congregation. In 1920, he married Henrikke Olsen, who was also from Søldarfjørður and in 1928, the couple moved to Fuglafjørður, where they lived for the rest of their lives.

Victor Danielsen spent much of his time traveling around the Faroe Islands as a missionary. In addition to being an excellent orator, he was also an author and a translator. He wrote two novels with religious content and translated a large number of books for both adults and children. He also translated about 900 hymns and songs, most of which in the Brethren congregation’s songbook, and composed more than 30 hymns.

In 1934 he began translating the Bible, first The New Testament and later The Old Testament. The Bible in its entirety was sent to print in Oslo in 1939, but the German occupation of Norway prevented the printing work. After a revision, the Bible was finally printed in the Faroe Islands and was published in 1949. Victor Danielsen continued his work as a missionary, author and translator until his death and became very important for the Faroese language.