Reykjavík Grapevine - 08.10.2010, Qupperneq 6

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MOST AWESOME LETTER:
Incorrect statements, wrong conclu-
sions
Paul Nikolov wrote an article in the 13th
issue of the Grapevine 2010 on troubles
in the Evangelical Lutheran church of
Iceland and the separation of church
and state. I find many of his statements
incorrect, conclusions wrong and the
article therefore misleading, not inform-
ing.
Decidedly irreligious?
The article states in its opening para-
graph that most Icelanders are “decid-
edly irreligious or not very religious”.
According the most comprehensive
study done on religiosity in Iceland this
century app. 70% of those asked said
that they were religious. The survey also
shows that 30% pray daily or more, 55%
pray once per week or more. App. 60%
say the Lord’s prayer once per week or
more, 29% say it daily. This survey was
conducted by Gallup for the ELCI and
the University of Iceland in 2004, not
in 2006 for the Humanist association
as is stated by Nikolov who quotes from
the survey about church attendance.
The survey asks specifically about regu-
lar Sunday service, not about how or if
people go to church for other services or
activities, therefore even that quote from
Nikolov is misleading.
These numbers would not by any soci-
ologist of religion be interpreted as be-
ing a sign of “not very religious” nation.
A little background
Þjóðkirkjan, The ELCI, became estab-
lished when Icelanders received home
rule in 1904 (not 1874 as is stated by
Nikolov). That transition was part of
increasing independence of Iceland
from Denmark. The church at that time
had substantial land, of which the state
took guardianship in 1907, instead pay-
ing salaries of pastors. Until then most
pastors did not receive salaries but were
farmers on lands belonging to their
parish. This agreement is the basis for
present agreement between the church
and state regarding salaries of a certain
number of pastors. Contrary to Nikolov’s
conclusion, it is not part of or dependent
on the clause in the constitution about
the Evangelical Lutheran Church as a
National Church of Iceland and as such
protected and supported by the state. A
change in relations does not necessitate
chance in the agreement. These are two
separate issues, something which sadly
is often not clear to parliamentarians in
Iceland.
Paul Nikolov states that the church
receives 5 billion ISK in form of state
revenues. A close look at this reveals
that Nikolov is wrong again. The figure
comes from the budget, covering govern-
ment expenditures on religious issues.
Of this, some 917 million goes to the
cemeteries, a separate institution from
the church and serving all, religious or
not religious. Of the remaining 4.1 bil-
lion, some 1,8 billion is membership
payments to the ELCI. The state collects
membership payments for all registered
religious associations in Iceland, some
240 million ISK is collected for other
religious associations – the amount is
higher for ELCI as it has some 80% of
the population as members. Some 2 bil-
lion ISK are received as salaries accord-
ing to the land agreement or payments
to separate funds due to various agree-
ments, for example the preservation of
over 200 listed (protected as heritage)
churches around the country.
Public records
Paul Nikolov states that in the National
Registry “all Icelanders are registered
with the church by default.” This is sim-
ply wrong. According to present legisla-
tion children are registered in the same
religious association as their mother
– also if the mother is outside religious
associations.
Disclosure
In a rather confusing narrative of what
has happened in the handling of accusa-
tions of sexual abuse in the church Niko-
lov states that the ELCI Advisory Board
on sexual misconduct did not disclose
how many cases it had handled during
more than a decade of work. The truth is
that this was disclosed August 17th, well
in time for the publication of the article,
which included references to much later
happenings. At the time, five cases had
been reported to the committee.

Another misunderstanding of Nikolov ś
regards his comments on disclosure of
police records of church staff. These
have been enforced for applicants in
children and youth work but according
to new regulations, from the General
Assembly November 2009, all staff will
bee screened and the proposed screen-
ing is much more thorough.
Change in relations?
The general description of events in
the article is muddled. The church has
said, and said repeatedly, that the han-
dling of complaints in 1996 of sexual
offence against former bishop Skulason,
was regrettable. There were simply no
institutions in the church where these
complaints could be channeled and the
church did not have the independence
that it achieved with legislation from
1997. Two committees now handle com-
plaints to the church and complaints
of sexual offences are channeled to the
Advisory Board where sufferers receive
support and help to take action.
It would have been easy for Nikolov to
find this information had he contacted
the ELCI.

While Nikolov’s article is not helpful in
understanding recent events, there is no
question that the past few weeks have
been a difficult time for the church and
also for the nation with new information
about the former bishop. It remains un-
certain whether this will be the deciding
factor in the relationship of church and
nation as Nikolov predicted. It may affect
the upcoming discussion on relation-
ship between church and state which
will undoubtedly be part of the process
to review the constitution. Most people,
however, judge the church by the service
they get in their parish and reports from
parishes show that participation in con-
gregations have not diminished, but in
many cases increased this autumn.

Steinunn A. Björnsdóttir,
Pastor and Project manager in the ELCI
Dear Steinunn,
thank you for your letter. It is most in-
formative. We also think it’s cool that
we’ve got members of the clergy reading
our paper – and actually contributing to
it! Kudos to you! Anyway, we thought it
would be best if Paul responded to your
letter. If you want to respond back to him
courtesy of us, please do so! We love dis-
course!
PS – we’re giving you our FREE BEER
OF THE ISSUE. If you’re not into drink-
ing it, you can always pass it along to
someone else. We still suggest you ven-
ture to Bakkus and share the beers with
Paul. He could even interview you! Now,
here’s Paul:
Dear Steinunn,
First, I want to thank you for taking the
time and effort to pen such a long let-
ter. I was at first very pleased to see an
official from the National Church re-
sponding to the points brought up in my
article. But then I became disappointed
when it became clear that where you
didn't completely misread what I'd writ-
ten, you engaged in rhetorical acrobatics
to avoid painful truths.
1. I was confused when you attempted
to correct which poll I was referring to
when I said that most Icelanders are de-
cidedly irreligious. The fact is, you're cit-
ing a poll from 2004, and I'm citing one
from 2006. I am not citing "the wrong
survey" any more than you are—mine
is just more recent. And speaking of re-
cent polls, a Capacent poll just published
shows 73% of Icelanders favouring sepa-
ration of church and state.
2. You're absolutely right that home rule
was established in 1904, and not in 1874.
Fortunately, I never said any such thing.
In the very first sentence of my article, I
said, "The Evangelical Lutheran Church
of Iceland has been a part of the govern-
ment since the constitution established
it as such in 1874." This is in reference
to the constitution drafted at that time,
which specifies that the "Evangelical Lu-
theran Church is a national church and
as such it is protected and supported by
the State."
3. The National Church does indeed re-
ceive about 5 billion ISK each year from
the state, and I find it very telling that
you ignored one of the major points of
my piece, i.e., clergy salaries, in particu-
lar, how the bishop makes about 1 mil-
lion ISK per month. To say that a large
portion of the money the Church gets
comes from members of the congrega-
tion is a bit misleading—all Icelanders
are registered with the National Church
by default. But what about the change to
legislation, you argue, wherein children
born in Iceland are registered in the
same religion as their mothers? Things
brings us to:
4. The "mother clause" is reminiscent of
the "grandfather clause" of the Ameri-
can South in the days of segregation.
The grandfather clause said that anyone
could vote whose grandfather could—it
seems as though it's a change from out-
right banning African-Americans from
voting, but as their grandfathers cer-
tainly couldn't vote, neither could they.
By the same token, as all these mothers
born a generation ago in Iceland were
automatically registered in the National
Church, just what religion can we expect
all these children to be registered in to-
day?
5. The events surrounding cases of sex-
ual abuse within the Church are indeed
muddled, but I think the purposeful reti-
cence of the Church is more to blame for
this than my own writing. That constant
media pressure finally compelled the
Church to reveal just how many cases
of sexual abuse have gone on within its
walls shouldn't be a source of pride but a
source of shame.
Overall, I was let down by your response,
and I say this as a person with nothing
but respect for the Christian faith in
general, and the National Church in par-
ticular. I hope someday the Church de-
votes less time to accusing members of
the media of dishonesty and more time
to fixing what needs fixing within their
own institution.
Regards,
Paul F. Nikolov
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