Reykjavík Grapevine - 08.11.2019, Síða 10

The number of Icelanders who trust
the National Church has decreased
by half since the turn of the century.
Only one third of the nation now trusts
the Church, according to a Gallup poll
published on October 28. In a nation
without a separation of Church and
State, it’s hard to read those numbers
as anything but a crisis for the National
Church.
There are many reasons for the
decline in trust in the institution. The
simplest is that immigrants to Iceland
are largely from countries with strong
Catholic beliefs. People born in Iceland
are registered with the church auto-
matically, so long as their parents are
also in the church. However, immi-
grants have to go through the process
of registering themselves if they want
to join the National Church. Since
the largest percentage of immigrants
to Iceland are Polish, the majority of
them choose to register instead with
with the Catholic Church. The Icelan-
dic National Church is Lutheran.
Betrayal of human rights
Additionally, Icelanders are leaving
the National Church in droves because
of the church’s notoriously tone-deaf
approach to social issues. For exam-
ple, in 2006, Gu!rún Ögmundsdóttir
submitted a bill to Parliament on vari-
ous legal benefits for homosexuals,
which, among other things, allowed
them to get married and adopt chil-
dren. Former Bishop Karl Sigurbjörns-
son of the National Church objected
strongly to the proposal.
And he wasn’t alone. Political scien-
tist Baldur Thorhallsson says that the
bishop and ministers lobbied hard
against the proposed change. "They
were calling Parliament and meeting
with them to prevent us from obtain-
ing the same legal rights as hetero-
sexual citizens," he told RÚV. "Dealing
with the clergy of the small denomi-
nations, that’s one thing. But having
to deal with the bishop of Iceland and
the renowned clerics who stood with
him in this matter, it hurt a man, it was
difficult. But that didn’t mean we were
going to give up and take this blow."
The bill eventually passed, but it
would take four years. In the mean-
time, church officials lambasted the
bill, and worked against it. "Every-
where in every church this is disputed,"
the former bishop said on New Years’
Day 2006. "The truth is that the church
has, for a long time, been based on a
certain definition in this matter. Now
that definition is being changed. But I
just want to say this: I think the sanc-
tity of marriage depends on us, that
we don't throw it on the dump without
thinking.”
While the world progressed
onwards , the National Church
defended their antiquated opinions.
"This is naturally the main reason why
groups of people, thousands of people,
have begun to withdraw from the
National Church at this time," Baldur
said.
Trying to stay relevant
The current bishop, Agnes M.
Sigur!ardóttir, has tried to keep the
National Church relevant by apologis-
ing to Iceland’s LGBTQ community on
RÚV’s news programme Kastljós for
her predecessor’s stance. Programme
host Einar "orsteinsson asked
Bishop Agnes if the LGBTQ commu-
nity should be entitled to an apology
from the church, spurring the bishop
wi respond: “I can
totally apologise on
behalf of the Church
for having come out
and hurting people
this way. I'm happy to
apologise for that.”
S h e p a r t i a l l y
attributes the lack of
trust in the Church
to the anomie she
believes occurred
when the nation’s
elementary schools
stopped teaching
Christianity. "It has
become a morass, I think. People do
not realise where the things that we
would like to live and work for come
from. It goes without saying that if
the children do not study the Bible at
home, for example, or at school, the
future will be such that they do not
know it exists," she told RÚV.
It would seem that lack of trust in the
church could be attributed more to
controversial opinions that are held
dearly by its members. Furthermore,
sex crimes that top clergy members
get away with, both locally and inter-
nationally, do not help the church’s
image.
Egregious mishandling of a
delicate situation
Possibly the most notable and most
appalling scandal in the National
Church involved former Bishop Ólafur
Skúlason. While he was bishop, he
sexually assaulted multiple women,
who reported his behaviour to church
officials. Nothing came of it until after
his death in 2008 when his daugh-
ter, Gu!rún Ebba Ólafsdóttir, came
forward and disclosed that Ólafur had
sexually abused her for many years.
She wrote a letter to Bishop Karl,
calling for the church to take additional
measures to combat sexual abuse
between clergy and the congregation.
She urged the church to “come clean”
and to confront instances of sexual
abuse that their priests and clergy
members have committed within
the walls of the church. Several other
women came forward after the letter,
saying that they were also molested by
Ólafur, and that they reported this to
church officials, but they were told to
stay quiet. The church never reported
the matter to the police.
In response to the criticism, Bishop
Karl sent a letter to the media stating
that one of the women who accused
Ólafur had gone to the state prosecutor,
who told her that there wasn’t enough
evidence to press charges. However,
in reality, it was Ólafur himself who
wanted to press charges against his
accusers, and the state prosecutor had
advised him not to pursue the case.
After public outcry when these facts
came to light, the bishop apologised for
this inaccuracy, calling it “a slip of the
pen.”
Later, it came to light that Bishop
Karl knew about Ólafur’s sexual
assault, but did nothing. Gunnar
Rúnar Matthíasson, head of a special
committee within the church that
oversees incidences of sexual abuse
within the congregation, told the
press that the church is fully aware of
instances of sexual abuse, and has for
a long time fought against it. He would
not, however, disclose just how many
instances of sexual abuse between
clergy and members of the congrega-
tion have been reported, saying only
that there has been more than one.
That raised the question of whether
the sanctity of confession takes prec-
edence over the legal obligation to
report sex crimes. Reykholt priest Geir
Waage told reporters that the church’s
vow of silence with regards to confes-
sions takes precedence over the law,
even when it comes
to matters of sexual
abuse. He argued that
the sanctity of the
confessional must be
unyielding.
“That which a priest
hears in the confes-
sional must never,
under any circum-
s t a n c e s , g o a n y
further,” he said.
“The vow of silence is
either all or nothing.
The credibility of a
priest is gone if people
cannot rely on what they say to a priest
staying with him.”
While church officials hemmed
and hawed about the philosophical
and ethical implications of this ques-
tion, hundreds of citizens unregistered
themselves.
Words:
Sam O’Donnell
Photo:
Art Bicnick
10 The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 20— 2019News
"They were
calling Parliament
and meeting
with them to
prevent us from
obtaining the
same legal rights
as heterosexual
citizens."
The Decline Of The
Icelandic Church
Scandals and controversy lead to mass exodus
The Incredible Shrinking Religion, coming soon to a theatre near you