Paul Egede

Paul or Poul Hansen Egede (9 September 1708 – 6 June 1789) was a Dano-Norwegian theologian, missionary, and scholar who was principally concerned with the Lutheran mission among the Kalaallit people in Greenland that had been established by his father, Hans, in 1721.

Hans became dedicated to the cause of restoring contact with and missionizing among the Norsemen of the lost Greenland colony, who were presumed to have remained Catholic following the Reformation.

A few months later, the Egede family and about forty other colonists landed on the Island of Hope (modern Kangeq) at the mouth of the fjord which houses today's Nuuk.

No Norse survivors were found and Hans's company went bankrupt in 1727, but he and his family learned the local Inuit dialect and began a Christian mission among them.

[2] Bible Translators Theologians Paul assisted his father in his work and, when his mother died and Hans returned to bury her in Denmark after a smallpox outbreak, he took over the mission for an additional six years, accepting to forgo his own desire to become a Danish naval officer.