Gudfrøðistreymar og trúarligar vekingarrørslur í Føroyum og Ísland

The paper is a comparison between theological currents and revivalist movements which have been influential in the Faroes and Iceland. Revivalist movements here refer to religious movements which offer a personal message and have challenged and/or influenced traditional Christianity and the national church in both countries. The discussed period is not demarcated in principle, but concerning sources and movements with lasting influence, it is in praxis limited to the period 1850–1950, approximately, which is also the period when the old agricultural organisation of the countries came under pressure. These changes are an important part of the basis for the religious changes. In historical and political context many similarities exist between the Faroes and Iceland, compared to Norway, originally, and later Denmark. But these similarities grow fewer after 1850 when Iceland set course out of the Danish state while the Faroes became part of the Danish state. In the cultural area, especially regarding the church and the language of the church, there are great differences between the Faroes and Iceland, which reach all the way back to the Reformation and continue until the middle of the twentieth century. A point of departure in this lecture is that the differences between the importance of the revivalist movements in the Faroes and Iceland can partly be understood by the fact that while in the Faroes the church and the language of the church remained Danish until 1939, the church and the language of the church in Iceland were Icelandic. These conditions were bound to have great influence on the activities of the revivalist movements in the two countries. The revivalist movements in the Faroes not only became part of the change from a collective agricultural society to a more individual fishery society; they also became part of a nationalist struggle which was partly turned against the church. In Iceland, where the struggle for sovereignty was nearly over and where the church had been Icelandic for ages, the situation was utterly different. Indeed, the church was part of the Icelandic nation building.