The Church of Norway (Den norske kirke), also known as the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Norway, is the state church of Norway, to which 86% of Norwegians are members. The Church of Norway professes the Lutheran branch of Christianity, and is a member of the Porvoo Communion.

Organization

The Church of Norway is established as the state church of Norway in the Constitution of Norway, and its supreme governor is the reigning monarch of Norway, who is obliged to profess himself/herself to the Lutheran faith. It is subject to legislation and budgeting passed in the Norwegian parliament, Stortinget and is administered through the Department of Churches.

It is subject to further governance through a synodal and episcopal structure, all based on the division of Norway into 11 dioceses, namely:

• Oslo, seated in Oslo, also covers Asker and Bærum (Bishop Ole Christian Kvarme)
• Borg, seated in Fredrikstad covering areas southeast of Oslo (Bishop Helga Haugland Byfuglien)
• Hamar, seated in Hamar covering most of the inland areas north and east of Oslo (Bishop Rosemarie Köhn)
• Tunsberg, seated in Tønsberg covering coastal areas just southwest of Oslo and inland northwest (Bishop Laila Riksaasen Dahl)
• Agder og Telemark, seated in Kristiansand covering Southeastern Norway (Bishop Olav Skjevesland)
• Stavanger, seated in Stavanger covering Southwestern Norway (Bishop Ernst Oddvar Baasland)
• Bjørgvin, seated in Bergen covering parts of Western Norway (Bishop Ole D. Hagesæther)
• Møre, seated in Molde covering northern parts of Western Norway (Bishop Odd Bondevik)
• Nidaros, seated in Trondheim, covering Trøndelag (Bishop Finn Wagle)
• Sør-Hålogaland, seated in Bodø, covering southern areas of Northern Norway (Bishop Øystein I. Larsen)
• Nord-Hålogaland, seated in Tromsø, covering the rest of Northern Norway (Bishop Per Oskar Kjølaas)

The General Synod is convened

The Bishops' Conference convenes three times a year and consists of the eleven bishops in the church. It is a deliberative body that issues opinions on various issues related to church life, theological issues, etc.

The National Council is convened five times a year and is comprised of 15 members, of which 10 are lay members, four are clergy, and one is a bishop. It prepares matters for decision-making elsewhere and puts into effect those decisions. The National Council also has working and ad hoc groups as part of its mandate, including those addressing issues such as church service, education, youth issues, etc.

The church also convenes committees and councils both at the national, diocese, and local levels, addressing specific issues to education, ecumenical matters, the Sami minority, and youth.

There are 1,600 Church of Norway churches and chapels. The country is geographically divided into 1,298 parishes, 100 deaneries and rural deaneries and 11 dioceses. Parish work is led by a pastor and an elected parish council.

History

The Church of Norway traces its origins to the introduction of Christianity to Norway in the 800s. It took several hundred years to convert Norway to Christianity, culminating in the Battle of Stiklestad. By the end of the 1100s, the Roman Catholic archbishopric of Nidaros (in today's Trondheim) covered all of Norway, parts of Sweden, Iceland, Greenland, the Isle of Man, the Orkney Islands, the Shetland Islands, the Faeroe Islands,

The Reformation in Norway was complete in 1537 when Christian III of Denmark decreed Lutheranism as the official religion of Norway and Denmark. The crown took over church property, and some churches were destroyed or abandoned. This created the integration between church and state that today's arrangement reflects.

After 1660 clergy were appointed civil servants by the reigning monarch, but theological issues were left to the hierarchy of bishops and other clergy.

The pietistic movement in Norway (embodied to a great extent of Hans Nielsen Hauge) served to reduce the distance between lay and clergy in Norway, which persists to this day. In 1873 lay congregational meetings were accepted in church life, though initially with limited influence. Unofficial plenary sessions took place every other year, and after 1982 these became official parts of church life.

After Vidkun Quisling was made head of state by the Nazi occupiers, the vast majority of Norwegian clergy and all Norwegian bishops disassociated themselves from the government, stating that they would only function as pastors for their congregations. The bishops were interned for the duration of the war, but congregational life continued more or less as usual.

Since World War II, a number of structural changes have taken place within the Church of Norway, mostly to institutionalize lay participation in the life of the church.

Current issues

There is continuous discussion about separating church and state in Norway, and currently it appears there is a majority both within the Storting and the public to separate it. Currently, the possibility of holding a referendum about the separation is being debated. While most Norwegians use the church only for lifecycle events, a great many appreciate the tradition and institutions of the church. Although 86% of the Norwegian population belongs to the state church, only 10% attend church services or other Christianity-related meetings more than once a month.

Moreover, it has recently been revealed that due to a poor quality of the membership register, around 75000 Norwegians who are members of other religious or humanist organisations have wrongfully been registered as members of the church. An equally large number of persons who are not members of any faith-based organisation might also be registered as members of the church without their knowledge, as a result the official membership numbers are slightly inflated compared to the real figures. Although there is no indication that this has been a conscious policy of the church, the inaccurate membership register has lead to the church possibly receving unlawfully hundreds of millions of Norwegian Crowns (NOK) over the last decade, as the Norwegian state contributes between 500 and 600 NOK to religious and humanist organisations for each registered member. Naturally, this has lead to stark critism from organisations that might have lost income due to the inaccuracy of the membership register of the Norwegian church.

In spite of the relative low level of religious practice in Norwegian society, the church in many cases functions as a provider of social services of last resort, and local clergy often play important social roles outside their spiritual and ritual responsibilities. In 2004 a survey conducted by Opinion AS showed that only 47% of the responders actually considered themselves Christians, while 49% did not consider themselves Christians. Another survey conducted by Gallup International in 65 countries in 2005 found that Norway was the least religious among the Western countries surveyed, only 36% of the population considered themselves religious. However, only 9% explicitly stated that they were atheists, while the biggest group, 46%, were those that consdiered themselves neither religious nor atheists.

Certain bishops' stance on whether gay and lesbians can serve as pastors is also under continuous debate

The church has also weighed in on political issues from time to time, and this has resulted in considerable controversy.

See also

• Evangelical Lutheran Free Church of Norway
• Lutheran World Federation

Église de Norvège Den norske kirke Den norske kyrkja