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Iceland is unique among European nations in that Christian people were among the first settlers, the first human inhabitants of the Island. According to the oldest written sources, when the Nordic settlers of Iceland arrived in the 9th century, they found Christian anchorites who had travelled from Ireland in search of solitude and the contemplative Christian life. Moreover, while many of the 9th and 10th century Norse settlers still embraced worship of Norse pagan gods, many others were Christians. In this sense there was no pre-Christian time in Iceland. Yet still the year 1000 Anno Domini and the person of Þorgeir Ljósvetningagoði Þorkelsson – Thorgeir Thorkelsson, the goði – chieftain of Ljósavatn, are of decisive importance. (As known to history through the vital chronocle of Ari fróði Þorgilsson – Are Torgilsson Frode – (1067–1148), the Íslendingabók.) The times were troubled, and the alternately heavy- and light-handed evangelization methods of Christian leaders, including of the King of Norway, Olav I Tryggvason (r. 995 - 1000), will not be comprehensible without reference to these conditions. (Some perspective can be gained as to what the Christians were up against by considering that, initially and before the Church was firmly in control, the pagan practice of infanticide through exposure was still to be tolerated even after Christianity was adopted as the national religion in 1000!) But in the year 1000, at the general assembly or parliament — the Alþingi – Althingi (and note, the oldest, still extant parliament in the world) — the hostile Christian and pagan factions within the Althingi resolved to submit to the mediation of its Law Speaker – Lögsögumaður, from 985 to 1001 Thorgeir Thorkelsson, as he was known to be a moderate, sensible man, though himself a pagan and indeed a pagan priest at the time. As recorded in the Íslendingabók, after his appointment to decide the question of whether Iceland would be a Christian or a pagan nation, Thorgeir spent a day and a night in contemplation — Dare we say prayer? — under a blanket of fur, before declaring the following day: "If the law is split, then peace will be split," and issuing his verdict that all Icelanders should be baptized into Christianity. Thorgeir is said to have thereafter returned to his farmstead, Ljósavatn, and to have thrown his pagan idols into a waterfall, thereafter named the Goðafoss – Waterfall of the Gods. From its beginnings, marked by the date 24 June 1000, and as in all other countries, the Christianization of Iceland proceeded gradually over the ensuing centuries.
Pictured above and below, among the rock and ice of Iceland, is a quite extraordinary location within European Christendom and for the world: Þingvellir – Thing Fields. Geologically, this is where North America and Europe meet. The rock outcrop rising above the foreground pictured (as also above the raised platform with the flagpole in center) is a visible surface feature of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge — the constructive plate boundary where the Eurasian and the North American tectonic plates meet — and the literal easternmost edge of the North American plate. Politically, while there is some debate about the exact location, the raised area with the flagpole in the center is the most probable meeting location between the years 930 and 1798 of the Alþingi – Althingi, the oldest still extant parliament in the world (so named, though in fact the Alþingi was abolished under Danish rule from 1798 until 1845). Religiously, this is the site from which Law Speaker Thorgeir Thorkelsson announced that Iceland would be a Christian country. The place on which Lögsögumaður – Lawspeaker Thorgeir, like his predecessors and successors, sat as the presiding official of the assembly of the Alþingi – Althingi was called the Lögberg – Law Rock. |
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