Not many Lutheran saint stories include Algerian pirates, a missing husband, or leprosy… but the story of Hallgrímur Pétursson does. Proposed date of commemoration: October 27.
No human beings even tried to live in Iceland before the ninth century A.D. It is harsh, cold, rocky, and rough. Little grows beyond lichen. Sheep and horses can make do grazing, but agriculture is out of the question. Fish are abundant in the surrounding waters, but violent storms and long winter ice make it a dangerous living. Those who finally did stake out a life for themselves on this spartan rock at the north edge of the world were tough realists with no small streak of fatalism.
But extremity conveys its own benefits. In such a place, everyone has to pull together to survive. Loyalties are intense, honor is everything, and even chieftains have to respect the will of the people. Storytelling is what gets you through: it’s no wonder that Icelanders produced the oldest literature of northern Europe in their rich collection of sagas. Or that they as a people were so deeply shaped by the Passion Hymns of Hallgrímur Pétursson (1614–1674).
Just a little over a century after the first settlements in Iceland—in the year 1000—the Althing, Iceland’s council of elders, undertook a momentous decision on behalf of its people: to accept the Christian faith. Despite its coming from a hot, dry desert worlds away, the gospel gripped the people and indigenized quickly. Ísleifur, the first native bishop, was consecrated in 1056 and immediately saw to the education of his clergy and translation projects.
Half a millennium later, a student named Oddur Gottskálksson learned of Luther’s teachings while studying abroad, prayed to the Lord to show him the right way, and upon receiving his answer pursued the Reformation course. He undertook the first translation of the New Testament into Icelandic, printed in 1540, which in turn led to the first complete Icelandic Bible in 1584. These two sparked a fresh flowering of literature after several centuries of dormancy following the era of the sagas. The Reformation’s commitment to education coincided neatly with Icelandic values and led to widespread literacy, and the new permission for pastors to marry meant that the clergy, now having families of their own, shared personally in the people’s struggle against poverty and for survival.
Nevertheless, the Lutheran interpretation of the gospel didn’t really take hold in the lives of the Icelandic people until the seventeenth century under the guidance of Hallgrímur Pétursson.
Hallgrímur was born in Hólar, the seat of the northern diocese of Iceland, where his father was sexton. Since Iceland was under Danish rule at the time, as a young man Hallgrímur went to Copenhagen to study theology with the intention of becoming a pastor—until a most unexpected turn of events disrupted his original plan.
Several years earlier, in 1627, three hundred Algerian pirates slaughtered most of the inhabitants of a cluster of islands off the south coast of Iceland called Vestmannaeyjar. Only a few were left alive, taken back to North Africa as slaves. There they were sold, chained, beaten, exposed, and told it was on account of their Christian faith.
One sole Icelander was released to take a ransom note to the King of Denmark, demanding 1200 rixdollars. It took ten years to raise the demanded ransom money in Iceland and Denmark, but eventually thirty-seven souls of the original three to four hundred were recuperated and delivered back to Danish soil. The church leaders were worried about what might have happened to the captives’ faith during their sojourn in an Islamic land—perhaps not entirely for the right reasons!—and so, in order to get the emancipated Icelanders back on track, they appointed bright young Hallgrímur to re-catechize them.
Stained glass image of Hallgrímur at the Hallgrímskirkja in Reykjavík
One of his students was a woman named Guðríður Símonardóttir, sixteen years older than he; we can only imagine what she endured during her enslavement. The son of Dey of Algiers wanted to marry her, though this never came about. Instead, after her release, and as has happened more than once in the history of theological education—Abelard and Heloise come to mind—teacher and student fell in love.
This in itself would have been no difficulty, except that Guðríður had been married before her abduction and knew nothing of her husband’s current whereabouts. The scandal was exacerbated when she was found to be with child by Hallgrímur. He had to give up his studies and the couple returned to Iceland. There they learned that Guðríður’s husband had died in the intervening years, whereupon they promptly got married themselves. A number of hard, poor years followed.
In the end, though, the bishop of Skálholt judged that Hallgrímur’s considerable gifts ought not go to waste despite his irregular behavior. In any event, he and Guðríður were now married. Accordingly, in 1644 Hallgrímur was ordained and in 1650 installed as the pastor of Saurbaer in southwest Iceland. It was there that he spent six years writing his masterpiece, a collection of Passion Hymns.
The book is a classic Lutheran combination of personal piety with doctrinal depth: fifty hymns to be sung throughout the seven weeks of Lent. It was published in 1666 and stamped Icelandic piety forever after with its distinctive character. Most Icelanders in every generation since have learned the hymns by heart; they are the first prayers taught to small children; and the hymn “On Death’s Uncertain Hour” is sung at every funeral. Through the hymns Icelandic Christians internalized the wonder of the joyful exchange: how Christ took our place on the cross and gave us his own life and righteousness. The hymns were not sung only once a week, reserved for Sunday worship, but were part of daily life.
This is due to the strong tradition of ecclesia domestica, the “household church,” in Iceland, that began with the Reformation and held strong through the mid-nineteenth century. Called húslestur (“house reading”) in Icelandic, on this occasion the whole household would gather in the common room every Sunday and holiday—and every evening in the winter when it was dark and activities were restricted by the weather—to sing hymns, pray, and listen to readings from the Scripture and devotional books. The húslestur followed the kvöldvaka or evening watch, a time of entertainment or indoor chores when the head of the household would tell tales from the sagas. But all work would stop for húslestur. Hallgrímur’s Passion Hymns were the top choice for evening reading in Icelandic homes.
Despite the happy reprieve in Saurbaer, hardship continued to haunt Hallgrímur’s life. In 1662 his entire farm burned down, and soon afterward he contracted leprosy, still a widespread disease in Iceland at the time. He struggled with it for years, but it finally claimed his life in 1674. But his beautiful hymns have lived on long after him.
Hallgrímur’s hymn “The Bonds of Christ”:
Jesus, the Son of God, was bound
That I might go forth free;
He, chafed with cruel fetters, found
Unbounded grace for me:
Around His wrists the cords of pain
Harsh, agonizing, lay:
From me in that dread hour sin’s chain
Unfastened fell away.
Lord, let the bonds that bound
Thee hold Me bound in bondage pure,
Kept mid temptations manifold,
Shut from the world’s allure;
That so my will, untrammelled, free,
Whiles here I dwell below,
May aye Thy ready servant be.
This boon, dear Lord, bestow!
For Further Reading
Two English translations of Hallgrímur’s Passion Hymns exist: The Passion-Hymns of Iceland, trans. C. Venn Pilcher (London: Robert Scott, Roxburghe House, Paternoster Row, 1913), which is now in the public domain and can be found online for free; and Hymns of the Passion: Meditations on the Passion of Christ, trans. Arthur Charles Cook (Reykjavik: Hallgrims Church, 1978). The selections here are taken from the earlier translation. Recordings of his hymns can easily be found online.
The main church of Reykjavík is called the Hallgrímskirkja in his honor. You can read about him on their website.