Reykjavík Grapevine - 12.09.2014, Qupperneq 28

28 The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 14 — 2014HISTORY
One Man's
Miracle
Jón was, to put it mildly, an eccentric.
He'd wake up at 4am and get the farm
labourers working furiously on some
strange project, then he'd forget the pur-
pose of this project and wander off by
himself, playing his fiddle. Playing it, that
is, until noon. At noon
he'd stop and sneeze.
If you want to live to
a ripe old age, he'd
say, you must sneeze
punctually at noon.
(Jón himself lived to
well over 90.)
There'd been a
church at Möðru-
dalur in saga times.
But when Jón purchased the farm, this
church was in a hopeless state of disre-
pair. Jón used the pulpit for storing salt
fish and probably would have wintered
his sheep in the nave if it weren't for the
fact that the nave didn't possess a roof.
In 1949, Jón's wife died. He decided to
build a new church as a memorial to her.
He didn't have a plan for this church, so
he sat down, drank a few cups of strong
coffee, and drew up a plan in six minutes.
He built the church in a relatively short
time with his own hands, but the local
Bishop refused to consecrate a building
that was dedicated to a mere human be-
ing rather than a religious figure. Jón pro-
tested that his wife had been a religious
figure, but to no avail.
Not too long ago, I
paid a visit to Möðru-
dalur expressly to see
Jón's church. It looked
like a typical Icelandic
country church, only it
was quite a bit small-
er—the size of a single
car garage. On the in-
side, there was room
for maybe ten people.
Anyone else would have to stand out-
side and commune with his or her Maker
while being assaulted by the infinitely
various Icelandic elements.
Jón had put his own painting of Mt.
Herðubreið directly above the pulpit. On
the mountain's usually wind-blasted,
snowy summit was an orchard of palm
trees. Jón had also established a base
camp of Giotto-style supplicants at the
foot of the mountain. The main figure in
the painting was Christ himself, who was
sliding down Herðubreið's steep slopes
with arms outstretched.
Jón hadn't bothered to give any of the
supplicants’ faces. Christ was more fortu-
nate and possessed a face. But Jón didn't
draw it. Rather, his half-brother Haukur
did. "Haukur's better at faces than I am,"
Jón supposedly said. Haukur was a house
painter in Akureyri at the time.
The more I looked at the painting,
the more endangered Christ's position
appeared to be. I wondered whether
Our Lord was going to end up in a
heap at the bottom of Herðubreið, an-
other mountaineering casualty. Then
I recalled what Jón had told someone
who'd voiced a similar concern: "No,
he won't fall down the mountain. You
can't see them, but I painted holes in
the rock for his heels..."
Jón Stefánsson's church in Möðru-
dalur is a monument to the human
spirit. Even more, it's a monument to
human whimsy. And somehow it seems
perfectly appropriate for a place that,
situated just below the Arctic Circle,
blows sandstorms...
Möðrudalur, one of the most isolated farms in Iceland, lies under the icy nipple of Mt.
Herðubreið in the northeastern part of the island. In 1919, a man named Jón Stefánsson
bought Möðrudalur from one of his brothers. Jón was a saddler and harness maker by
trade. He was also an accomplished musician. At night he'd sit at his organ, and the echo
of Bach sonatas, which he'd play backwards note for note, would sweep over Möðruda-
lur's lava and empty sands.
Photos
Ryan Parteka
Words
Lawrence Millman
“The main figure in the
painting was Christ
himself, who was slid-
ing down Herðubreið's
steep slopes with arms
outstretched. ”