Unitarianism in Norway
By
Knut Heidelberg, Norway.
Lecture given at Reformation Day, October 31 2009, in the
Unitarian congregation in Debrecen in Hungary.
First of all I will thank you for inviting me here to this wonderful congregation and city. Although I have many times now been a guest in your country, this is my first time visiting Hungary outside Budapest. I am invited to talk about Unitarianism in Norway. As I understand I now have about 20 to 30 minutes at my disposal. But I do hope you forgive me if this may take some more time Hungarian translation included.
But first of all I would like to introduce myself. My name is Knut Heidelberg. I am a former teacher serving in junior high school – grade 14 to 16 - and a former Evangelical-Lutheran minister and catechist of the Church of Norway, or as we say; The State Church. Norway is one of the very few countries left in the world that still maintains the state church model. About 80% of the population in Norway are members of this church. As a student in 1978 I got interested in Unitarianism and since then our One Lord has been so kind to guide me step by step in my strange spiritual journey and moving to your Unitarian tradition. Today I share my time between serving the small Unitarian movement in Norway as Unitarian pastor, translating and writing, and otherwise practising Gestalt therapy in my hometown Askim.
In Oslo in the 80’ies there existed one or two small Unitarian discussion groups among students at the University of Oslo, and later even within very liberal ministers in the State Church (I believe these groups are no longer active). Perhaps it is more correct to say it was religious freethinking groups than plain Unitarians. But from this milieu the idea of restoring the first Norwegian Unitarian church slowly emerged. But as often experienced people come and go, and in the long run there is only a small dedicated group left. This was what happened in this case too. Still we continued to maintain some activity also during the 90’ies when the plans of restoration grew more and more serious. It was probably from 1995 on we started to consider us not simply a group but more like a congregation, but because some of us at that time actually worked inside the State Church we also had to be careful not to draw to much attention to our Unitarianism. It was a long process guided by Our Lord. Looking back that is the only explanation I see because it was a fragile Unitarian plant that had started to grow and only protected by the Lord it was and is given life. Then - four years ago, in 2005, we actually managed officially and according to Norwegian law to restore the first Norwegian Unitarian church from 1895 and had it registered by the State. I seem to remember the ‘we’ I now am referring to then was 37 members of which only a handful was able to meet on a regular basis.
I will soon jump back in time and tell you about this first Unitarian church. But to stay in the present: At the moment there is in Norway one registered Unitarian Christian church following the tradition going back to the edict at Torda and bishop Francis David. This church is not a local church, but registered as a national church. And the 37 have grown to 100. We have also managed to get The County Governor Office representing the King of Norway and his government to appoint the first Norwegian Unitarian Christian superintendent.
This is to say there actually is a Unitarian bishop’s office in Norway, even if we prefer to use the title ‘superintendent’ and not bishop. And the holder of this office also has the right and power to ordain Unitarian ministers later to be approved by the County governor’s office. You see, in Norway a rightly called and installed and ordained minister of a registered church, has to be approved by the State represented by the County governor’s office. This because the ordained person is also given the power to represent the King as his civil servant and to officiate at legal weddings. In Norway you may be legal wed either by the State or by a church given this right. Our Norwegian Unitarian Church received in 2006 the right to perform legal weddings anywhere within the Kingdom of Norway (not outside). At the moment Norway is the only country among the Nordic countries where you to day may have a legal official Unitarian wedding. I will return to this later because it also opens up for a problem.
But let us now stop and move back in time. To understand Unitarianism to day we also have to know its history. Before I continue on present day’s Unitarianism in Norway allow me briefly to outline its history. Let me already stress that this history shows us that for hundred years ago the Unitarian churches in that time’s Hungary supported and helped the Unitarians in Norway. In other words, there exists in history a link between Unitarians in 1909 Hungary and Norway. Sadly history destroyed this link – wars and dictators and evil ideologies - but never the less the link can not be removed. I will now tell you about our common connection in history. About what brings Unitarians in Hungary and Romania and Norway together as one Unitarian family.
In my hand I hold the copy of this link. The original is safe back in my office. Yes, it is a letter. Very few people have so far seen it. This is a letter written in 1909 by your bishop Ferencz Jósef. When I some years ago worked on my thesis on the history of Unitarianism in Norway it turned up in the archive of the late Norwegian Unitarian minister Herman Haugerud who died in 1937. Only the will and guidance of our One Father in Heaven made it possible to save this letter from destruction. Unfortunately there is no time to tell you the history of how this letter turned up. Perhaps another time. Now history outlined to understand the present.
As mentioned the first Norwegian Unitarian church was established in 1895 by Kristofer Janson who had been ordained Unitarian minister in the USA and worked there for many years. After a major conflict among the Unitarian congregation Janson was forced to leave his church in 1898 and in 1900 many other members also left. In 1900 the church had about 100 members and 30 of them left. So it was a major exodus of which it would never recover. And for the next 37 years this church existed it would never again have more than 110 members.
After the tragedy of 1900 the Unitarian congregation calls the Norwegian Unitarian minister Herman Haugerud then working in the USA. He arrives in 1904 and shortly thereafter sets out on a tour to England and the USA to collect money to erect a Unitarian church building in Oslo. He had many Unitarian contacts which also included the Hungarian Unitarian Church at that time. To day what is left of his correspondence with Hungarian Unitarians is only the letter I showed you. In this letter bishop Ferencz informs Haugerud that the Unitarian churches of Hungary have collected 1,000 Hungarian Crowns to be sent to Haugerud in order to help erecting the church building in Oslo. So in 1909 Hungarian Unitarians were very well informed about Unitarianism in Norway and even taking active part in building a Unitarian church in Oslo. Then came First World War and everything that followed up to the fall of communism in 1989. The link between Hungarian and Norwegian Unitarians seemed to fade and disappear in 1937 when Haugerud died. Unfortunately no Unitarian church building was ever erected and nobody knows what happened to the money bishop Ferencz sent to a bank in Oslo. I will now leave history and move on to the present day Unitarian situation.
The Unitarian church in Norway today is named ‘The Bét Dávid Unitarian Association (The Norwegian Unitarian Church)’. It is a long and complicated name but not without a reason. At the moment only the phrase Bét Dávid is important to understand our Unitarian identity. Bét is Hebrew for “house” and we use the Hebrew word to indicate our connection to Jesus as a Jewish person, not a god. ‘Dávid’ you all know. He is the founder of your Unitarian church, bishop Francis David. The phrase ‘Bét Dávid’ is there to tell everyone that we in the Norwegian Unitarian church belong to the house of bishop Francis David and following Jesus according to that tradition. When finally able to register our church in 2005 we did so by restoring the 1895 By-laws of the first Norwegian church. So even if this church officially ceased to exist in 1937 it was brought back to life in 2005. And at the same time also the now 100 years old link between you and us in Norway is back.
We in the Norwegian Unitarian church do indeed consider us part of the Unitarian Christian tradition found in Hungary and Romania. So strong is this identification that no Norwegian will ever be ordained to Unitarian pastor in our church without an official Unitarian blessing ceremony officiated by a minster of a Unitarian church either in Hungary or Romania. Myself I received this blessing in Budapest in 2007 from many Unitarian ministers in The Hungarian Unitarian Church. Some of you are here today. Last month we ordained another Unitarian pastor to serve in Norway. He too had to travel to Budapest in order first to receive the blessing from a Unitarian minister of The Hungarian Unitarian Church. Only then we would ordain him. It is important to stress this strong link between you and us.
So how does the Norwegian Unitarian church actually look today? Well, we have about 100 members and at the moment two Unitarian pastors of whom one is officially approved superintendent by Norwegian authorities. This year we officiated at 13 legal Unitarian weddings and at the moment 12 couples have contacted us to have Unitarian weddings next year. We are by the government encouraged to engage in prison care ministry and are now preparing for this hopefully beginning next year. In Oslo we have rented a meeting-place for monthly meditation-meetings. Unfortunately we do not have much money and will only be able to maintain this meeting until March next year. In another town called Skien we are in the process of creating a Unitarian congregation. According to our understanding of congregation, we consider a congregation established everywhere we manage to on a regular basis have two or three persons gathered in the name of Jesus. As you know Jesus told us where two or three are together in his name, he too will be. That is the minimum for talking about a congregation. How many members the Unitarian congregation in Skien will have, we do not know because we will officially open the congregation Sunday November 15 with a lecture on Unitarianism followed by a Communion Service using the beautiful Communion Set we received as a gift from a Unitarian church in Romania. On the Lord’s table we will have the Church flag of Bela Bartok Unitarian Church in Budapest, also a kind gift from that congregation and late bishop Csaba Rázmány. All this on Francis David Day - another indication of our strong link to the Unitarian tradition we are part of.
At the moment we have three problems. Our members are shattered all over Norway. This makes it almost impossible to maintain meetings. We do a try in Oslo and Skien. In Oslo the meditation group that started this month consists of five persons and my guess is that the beginning of the congregation in Skien will probably not collect more than ten persons. So the situation is 100 members living far apart from each other. Isolated in a Unitarian solitude. We have still not solved this problem. At the moment we maintain contact via the Internet, phone, and pastor visiting as many as possible. It involves lot of travelling for the pastor.
The second problem is of course money. From State and county we receive some support but far from enough to rent a place to have regular meetings during the year. We only are able to pay for six meetings each year. Unfortunately we have trouble borrowing churches in Norway which would not cost that much, because as Unitarians we are not considered to be Christians. In summertime we try to solve this problem by having some meetings outdoors in old church ruins but in wintertime it is not possible. And in Norway the summer is short and the rest of the year sometimes seems to be winter. At the moment we try not to use private homes but we probably have to change this in the future.
I mentioned earlier on that weddings opened up for a problem, and this is our third problem. We have in fact so many couples asking for Unitarian weddings that we have to turn down most of them. The popular wedding-months are in summertime and at the moment we actually have to say no more than about 12 weddings a year. Most of the couples are Norwegians but this year we have also wed non-Norwegian couples and next year there will also be more couples from other countries than Norway. There is a special reason for this.
The reason is the change of the Norwegian Law of Marriage. In 2008 Norway accepted legal same-sex weddings to start January this year. Every church having the right to wed in Norway may if they want to officiate at same-sex weddings. Most Christian churches in Norway refuse to do this. To my knowledge only the Norwegian Unitarian church has accepted to officiate at same-sex weddings. This is the reason for many couples coming to Norway to have their wedding. They come from countries where this is not legal and ask for a legal same-sex marriage in Norway. And many of them want a Christian marriage with prayer and blessings by a pastor.
That same-sex weddings are controversial and that we are facing many theological problems, we of course are very well aware of. We can manage that. But we did not foresee the massive attacks we receive from other Christians. It is everything from being called bad names in public to be refused to advertise in Christian newspapers and denied the right to access churches. In one way, to accept officiating same-sex weddings the Norwegian Unitarian church damaged its struggle to be accepted as a Christian church among other Christian churches. On the other hand we have also won support from the ordinary Norwegian. Most of the Norwegians are in support of same-sex weddings. It is too early to say something about the consequences part from at the moment more and more Norwegians learn there is a Norwegian Unitarian church simply because we are the only Christian church having pastors that officiate at such weddings.
Well, so far the Norwegian Unitarian church. As you understand there is a living Norwegian Unitarian tradition going back to 1895 and this tradition is linked to your Unitarian tradition going even further back to the 16th century. And together we move further and further back to Jesus where we belong together with all members of the Christian family. Still I can not conclude without saying something about another movement that is found in Oslo to day. The Unitarian Universalists.
Some years ago a couple from America moved to Norway. They are Unitarian Universalists and eager to start such a group in Oslo. Already back in America they got in touch with me and we corresponded via the Internet. In Oslo I helped them to get in contact with individual Unitarian Universalists – mostly Americans. By 2007 they created The Norwegian Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, which by 2008 started to have meetings and has now done so once a month except in the summer-holiday. And some of the members are attending retreats by the European Unitarian Universalists. Some did also attend the Council Meeting of the International Council of Unitarians and Universalist held in Kolozsvar in the beginning of September. So if you too attended some of you surely have met representatives from this new group in Norway. Of course this group does not identify as a Christian group only but consists of people from various religious backgrounds. Part from personal friendship and that one of the founders of this group is a relative to mine, there is no connection concerning meetings and other activities between this Unitarian Universalist group and the Norwegian Unitarian church.
But there is a formal connection as both the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship and the Unitarian Church in May this year together created a Unitarian umbrella organization which now has become provisional member of The International Council of Unitarian and Universalists. This umbrella organization is now the only possible official Norwegian Unitarian link to International Council of Unitarian and Universalists.
So let me sum up everything as follows:
In 1895 the first Norwegian Unitarians planted the Unitarian seed and the Unitarian plant started to grow in a hostile soil. Our Lord has protected His little Unitarian plant and called some of us to nurse the small Unitarian garden in Norway. Today more than hundred years later the plant is still a small and fragile plant which has not even started to blossom. But I like to think its roots are getting stronger and stronger. And if the future will bring Unitarian spring and summer the plant will blossom. On the other hand, if the future will bring Unitarian winter the plant will survive because of its strong roots. And then one day hundred years to come another Unitarian gardener will continue our work. As we continue the work of the Unitarian gardeners than more than hundred years ago planted the Unitarian seed they inherited from bishop Francis David.
Thank you for your attention. And may the Lord bless you all.