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The Christianization of Scandinavia, as well as other Nordic countries and the Baltic countries, took place between the 8th and the 12th centuries. The realms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden established their own archdioceses, responsible directly to the pope, in 1104, 1154 and 1164, respectively.
The Catholic Church in the Nordic countries was the only Christian church in that region before the Reformation in the 16th century. Since then, Scandinavia has been a mostly non-Catholic region and the position of Nordic Catholics for many centuries after the Reformation was very difficult due to legislation outlawing Catholicism.
However, Norse paganism and other pre-Christian religious systems survived in the territory of what is now Sweden later than that; for instance the important religious center known as the Temple at Uppsala at Gamla Uppsala was evidently still in use in the late 11th century, while there was little effort to introduce the Sámi of Lapland to ...
The spread of conversion can be measured by burial sites as Pagans were buried with grave goods while Christians were not. [10] Christianity had become well established in Norway by the middle of the 11th century and had become dominant by the middle of the 12th century. Stave churches were built of wood without the use of nails in the 13th ...
The first significant sign that Christianity had been established on a larger scale was the baptism of King Olof Skötkonungs circa 1008. Saint Bridget . According to Adam of Bremen , Olof Skötkonung was granted an ultimatum at the ting in Uppsala : if he respected the faith of the pagan Nordic mythology and the blót rituals at the Temple of ...
Christian laws also mentioned outdoor cult sites which were known as horgs. [6] Bans on eating horsemeat after the official conversion to Christianity imply that it was an important element of pagan cults. [3] Norsemen buried their dead in the ground or cremated them, but they always placed burial gifts in the graves. [6]
In Norway as of 2019, 68.7% of the population are members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church as compared to 96% in the 1960s. [2] Kevin Boyle's 1997 global study of freedom of religion states that "Most members of the state church are not active adherents, except for the rituals of birth, confirmation, weddings, and burials.
The scholar of Scandinavian studies Thomas A. DuBois said Old Norse religion and other pre-Christian belief systems in Northern Europe must be viewed as "not as isolated, mutually exclusive language-bound entities, but as broad concepts shared across cultural and linguistic lines, conditioned by similar ecological factors and protracted ...