Iceland review - 2012, Page 83

One-third of the priests in the Evangelical
Lutheran Church of Iceland, the state church,
are now female. The first female priest, Auður Eir
Vilhjálmsdóttir, was ordained in 1974. Last May, two-
thirds of the church elected Agnes M. Sigurðardóttir
as Iceland’s next bishop. She became the first female
bishop of Iceland, and number 98 in a long succes-
sion, since Ísleifur Gissurarson became the country’s
first bishop in 1056. Here in the middle, with Auður
Eir to her right, Agnes is ready and proud to preach
her version of the word of God to her fellow citi-
zens. She took office on July 1 in Hallgrímskirkja
church in the center of Reykjavík, in front of the
58 priests in the Republic, of whom 48 are female.
Close to nine out of ten Icelanders belong to the
state church, although in 2011, a Gallup poll found
that 60 percent of Icelanders said that religion was
unimportant in their daily lives.
HallelujaH