Since the year 1000 Iceland has been a Christian nation, which Christianity enjoying a preferential status. For most of the millennia since the Viking Age parliament of Iceland, Alþingi, adopted Christianity as the official religion of the nation, Christianity was the only legally recognized religion, and the profession of other faiths or the practice of other forms of Christianity than those recognized by the State Church being seen as capital crimes.
Fortunately this is no longer the case, and while the vast majority of Icelanders still belonging to Christian churches, other religions, including the old pagan Ásatrú, have been growing in popularity in recent years.
Read more: Ásatrú, the old Norse Paganism is the fastest growing and largest non-Christian religion in Iceland
Christianity in Iceland
In the year 1000 Alþingi, the Viking-age parliament of the Commonwealth of Iceland, adopted Christianity as the official religion of the nation. While it was still permissible to observe the old religion in private, the old pagan ways quickly receded in the face of Christianity.
The Lutheran Reformation reached Iceland in the 1530s at the same time as it swept over the rest of the Danish Kingdom, but met stiff resistance from the local elites who had used the Catholic Church as a major power institutions. The King of Denmark, who had already completed the reformation of the rest of his realm, including Norway and the Faeroe Islands, was finally able to bring the Southern Bishopric at Skálholt under his control in 1541. However, the king was unwilling to move with full force against the powerful bishop of North Iceland, Jón Arason who ruled as a local lord at Hólar í Hjaltadal, in Skagafjörður fjord in the north.
Finally in 1550 Royal officials were able to arrest Jón Arason, the Bishop of Hólar, who was by that time the only Catholic bishop in the Nordic Countries. Jón was arrested along with his sons (yes: Catholic Bishops, and priests in Iceland kept wives and families), and brought to Skálholt where Jón and his sons Ari and Björn were executed. Iceland became a Lutheran nation with a state church.
The National Church of Iceland, also called the Lutheran Evangelical Church of Iceland is a state church, recognized as such by law and the constitution of Iceland.
A state church but religious freedom
As late as the 1990s virtually all Icelanders belonged to the National Church, but with growing secularization, various scandals which have shaken the Icelandic Church like other churches worldwide, and growing multiculturalism and other social and cultural changes, the membership in the National Church has been dropping.
Today 65.6% of Icelanders belong to the National Church, down from 89% in 2000.
According to the latest data from Registers Iceland (1 October 2018) the religious affiliation of Icelanders is as follows:
Christian churches
| National Church of Iceland | 233,062 | 65.63% |
| Other mainline Lutheran churches | 20,104 | 5.66% |
| Pentecostalism | 2,699 | 0.76% |
| Babtism | 66 | 0.02% |
| Seventh-day Adventism | 659 | 0.19% |
| Other protestant or non-denominational Christian churches, sects | 1,638 | 0.46% |
| Roman Catholic Church | 13,799 | 3.89% |
| Russian Orthodox Church | 678 | 0.19% |
| Serbian Orthodox Church | 362 | 0.10% |
| Jehovas Witnesses | 616 | 0.17% |
| Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints | 160 | 0.05% |
Total Christianity: 273,843, 77.12% of the population
Non-Christian religions
| Ásatrú, the old Norse paganism | 4,375 | 1.23% |
| Buddhism | 1,495 | 0.42% |
| Bahá'i Faith | 357 | 0.10% |
| Hinduism, Ananda Marga | 5 | 0.00% |
| Islam | 1,086 | 0.31% |
Total non-Christian religions: 7,318, 2.06% of the population
Other
| Humanism | 2,649 | 0.75% |
| Other, not identified | 44,937 | 12.65% |
| Unaffiliated with any religion, church | 24,501 | 6.90% |
| Non-religious, non-spiritual organization registered as religious organizations | 1,847 | 0.52% |
Total unaffiliated with a religious belief or church: 73,934, 20.82% of the population
Since the year 1000 Iceland has been a Christian nation, which Christianity enjoying a preferential status. For most of the millennia since the Viking Age parliament of Iceland, Alþingi, adopted Christianity as the official religion of the nation, Christianity was the only legally recognized religion, and the profession of other faiths or the practice of other forms of Christianity than those recognized by the State Church being seen as capital crimes.
Fortunately this is no longer the case, and while the vast majority of Icelanders still belonging to Christian churches, other religions, including the old pagan Ásatrú, have been growing in popularity in recent years.
Read more: Ásatrú, the old Norse Paganism is the fastest growing and largest non-Christian religion in Iceland
Christianity in Iceland
In the year 1000 Alþingi, the Viking-age parliament of the Commonwealth of Iceland, adopted Christianity as the official religion of the nation. While it was still permissible to observe the old religion in private, the old pagan ways quickly receded in the face of Christianity.
The Lutheran Reformation reached Iceland in the 1530s at the same time as it swept over the rest of the Danish Kingdom, but met stiff resistance from the local elites who had used the Catholic Church as a major power institutions. The King of Denmark, who had already completed the reformation of the rest of his realm, including Norway and the Faeroe Islands, was finally able to bring the Southern Bishopric at Skálholt under his control in 1541. However, the king was unwilling to move with full force against the powerful bishop of North Iceland, Jón Arason who ruled as a local lord at Hólar í Hjaltadal, in Skagafjörður fjord in the north.
Finally in 1550 Royal officials were able to arrest Jón Arason, the Bishop of Hólar, who was by that time the only Catholic bishop in the Nordic Countries. Jón was arrested along with his sons (yes: Catholic Bishops, and priests in Iceland kept wives and families), and brought to Skálholt where Jón and his sons Ari and Björn were executed. Iceland became a Lutheran nation with a state church.
The National Church of Iceland, also called the Lutheran Evangelical Church of Iceland is a state church, recognized as such by law and the constitution of Iceland.
A state church but religious freedom
As late as the 1990s virtually all Icelanders belonged to the National Church, but with growing secularization, various scandals which have shaken the Icelandic Church like other churches worldwide, and growing multiculturalism and other social and cultural changes, the membership in the National Church has been dropping.
Today 65.6% of Icelanders belong to the National Church, down from 89% in 2000.
According to the latest data from Registers Iceland (1 October 2018) the religious affiliation of Icelanders is as follows:
Christian churches
| National Church of Iceland | 233,062 | 65.63% |
| Other mainline Lutheran churches | 20,104 | 5.66% |
| Pentecostalism | 2,699 | 0.76% |
| Babtism | 66 | 0.02% |
| Seventh-day Adventism | 659 | 0.19% |
| Other protestant or non-denominational Christian churches, sects | 1,638 | 0.46% |
| Roman Catholic Church | 13,799 | 3.89% |
| Russian Orthodox Church | 678 | 0.19% |
| Serbian Orthodox Church | 362 | 0.10% |
| Jehovas Witnesses | 616 | 0.17% |
| Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints | 160 | 0.05% |
Total Christianity: 273,843, 77.12% of the population
Non-Christian religions
| Ásatrú, the old Norse paganism | 4,375 | 1.23% |
| Buddhism | 1,495 | 0.42% |
| Bahá'i Faith | 357 | 0.10% |
| Hinduism, Ananda Marga | 5 | 0.00% |
| Islam | 1,086 | 0.31% |
Total non-Christian religions: 7,318, 2.06% of the population
Other
| Humanism | 2,649 | 0.75% |
| Other, not identified | 44,937 | 12.65% |
| Unaffiliated with any religion, church | 24,501 | 6.90% |
| Non-religious, non-spiritual organization registered as religious organizations | 1,847 | 0.52% |
Total unaffiliated with a religious belief or church: 73,934, 20.82% of the population
