Icelandic Reformation

Resistance to the Icelandic Reformation ended with the execution of Jón Arason, Catholic bishop of Hólar, and his two sons, in 1550.

They were both powerful leaders who had originally been bitter enemies, but with the approaching threat of Lutheranism, they found common cause as allies against religious reform.

[2] Denmark had been embroiled in civil war during the dissolution of the Kalmar Union, and the two Icelandic bishops had held both secular and ecclesiastical power in the country for many years.

[5] In 1538, when the kingly decree of the new Church ordinance reached Iceland, bishop Ögmundur and his clergy denounced it, threatening excommunication for anyone subscribing to the German heresy.

[6] In 1539, the King sent a new governor to Iceland, Klaus von Mervitz, with a mandate to introduce reform and take possession of church property.

In the spring of 1541, Danish soldiers under the command of Christoffer Huitfeldt landed in Iceland, arrested Ögmundur and took him to Denmark.

The Danish king and his emissaries did not immediately move against Catholic bishop Jón Arason, who still controlled his seat at Hólar.

In the ensuing years, Iceland remained divided into Protestants and Catholics, but Gissur and Jón Arason kept the peace.

Jón brought about the election of abbot Sigvarður Halldórsson in Þykkvabær as bishop of Skálholt, and sent him to Denmark to be consecrated.

In the summer of 1550, Jón rode to the Althing, where he marshalled enough support to pass a decree that Icelanders should readopt the Catholic faith.

[12] That autumn, Jón and his sons rode west to Dalir with the aim of getting Daði under their power, either through coercion or compromise.

[13] With Lutheranism securely in place, Catholicism was outlawed, and all Catholic church property was seized by Iceland's secular rulers.