by Abbot Tryphon
Most people are aware that the Norse explorer Leif Eriksson was the first European to reach America, some 500 years before Christopher Columbus, but very few know he arrived as part of a Christian mission. Fewer still realize Leif Eriksson was an Orthodox Christian. Having become a hirdman (guard) of the royal army of King Olaf Tryggvason in Norway, Leif had himself accepted baptism into the Christian faith, and had received from the King orders to travel to Greenland with a priest in order to convert the Norse settlements there.
When their ships were blown off course, Leif and his companions ended up in what we now know as Newfoundland. After getting back on course, and converting the Greenlanders to Christ, Lief and his crew returned to this Newfoundland, where they built permanent settlements, settlements that included the construction of churches. While the Norwegian presence in North America was short lived, the fact that the first Christian presence on the continent was Orthodox is significant.
Although King Olaf Tryggvason had accepted baptism at Canterbury in England, the first Christian rulers in Scandinavia were kinsmen of the rulers of Gardarike, or Kiev (The Rus, of course, were not Slavs but Scandinavians, most hailing from Sweden).
King Olaf had himself grown up under the protection of Grand Prince Valdemar (Vladimir), who famously converted the Rus to Christianity in 988. Norse Christianity was Orthodox in tone and appearance from the beginning, and the last of Norway’s pre-schism Christian kings, Harald Hardrada, was openly rebuked by Rome for adhering to Eastern traditions. He brought into the Norwegian Church a number of priests and bishops from Novgorod and Gardarike, and also Miklagard (Constantinople), where he had headed the Varangian guard in service of the Byzantine emperor.
The first Christian presence in the Americas, then, was not merely Orthodox in the sense of pre-schism, but had strong ties to the cultural and ecclesiastical traditions of the Orthodox East. This fact can clearly be seen in the interiors of the thousand year old Norwegian stave churches that we see today.
To read more about Leif Erikson and his connection to Orthodoxy and Newfoundland you can read Fr. Geoffrey Korz’ article “The Vikings in Newfoundland: Canada’s first Orthodox Parish?” https://sites.google.com/site/ocachurch/our-history (it is located further down the page).
Should you wish to, you can also learn more about the only Orthodox mission on the island of Newfoundland: https://sites.google.com/site/ocachurch/home
Please remember us in your prayers!
This is glorious. I’m going to have to republish those!
Father bless!
We’ll take all the awareness and prayers we can get so please do share!
This is such exciting news for me. I am an adoptee and grew up thinking I shared my parents Scotch Irish heritage. I was told that the adoption agency tried to match children with parents of similar ancestry. I recently did a DNA test through Ancestry.com and learned that I am 72% Scandinavian. I converted to Orthodoxy in 2010 from a Presbyterian background. It is exciting to me to think that the possibility of having Orthodox Christian heritage is real!
Cindy, you must write up your conversion story for us!
I know that this is an old article and unlikely to be visited often but I am curious about something. I am researching the history of Christian Thanksgiving celebrations in North America. The earliest confirmed celebration that I have thus far discovered was a mass of Thanksgiving conducted by a Roman Catholic priest in St. Augustine in September of 1565 upon the landing of the conquistadors there. I have an unconfirmed report of a similar celebration in what is now Texas about 20 years earlier than that. I have read that Leif Erikson brought a priest back to Greenland with him but was wondering if anyone could shed light on the possibility of there being a Christian mass of Thanksgiving celebrated in North America by that priest when he discovered Vineland or other North American lands. I know I’m going out on a limb on this but it seems logical that fairly common place for priests of either Roman or Easter tradition to celebrate a mass of Thanksgiving upon some positive achievement. I would like to thin it likely that it did but if anyone knows of an actual record of such an event that would be particularly interesting to me.
As far as I know, no such record exists. If a priest did accompany explorers (highly doubtful), he would certainly have celebrated the Divine Liturgy as thanks to God, but a ‘mass of Thanksgiving’ didn’t exist then. EVERY Divine Liturgy is a Thanksgiving (that’s what Eucharist means).
Thank you for your swift reply Fr. John. So if I understand you correctly then, technically if he had brought a priest then the assumption would be that the first Thanksgiving celebrated would have been the first Divine Liturgy which would have been a regular thing. Forgive my ignorance. I was brought up as a Roman Catholic so that is my reference point. We in the Roman Catholic tradition speak of Mass thought I am unsure how far back that term was used. I am completely unfamiliar with the Eastern traditions or terminology other than what they might have in common with Roman Catholicism. Until I read the article on the page I was unaware that Leif Ericson had even been Christian. I assumed he lived his entire life as a pagan Viking. But would it not be something interesting if there was some sort of evidence that the first Thanksgiving, as we modern Americans define it, was celebrated in America by Leif Ericson et al? Well I suppose I should stop there as I’m starting to sound like Barry Fell. Thanks for your input and the enlightening article above. I shall have to study the matter some more.
David, they would not have celebrated ‘Thanksgiving’ in the sense of a special day, but they would have celebrated liturgy as a sacrifice of thanksgiving.
What about saint Brendan the navigator?
Dear FrcJohn Evloyite Fabulous write up- Thank You!! And yet, pretty overwhelming evidence of Celtic monks here from at least the 8th century if wishing to discuss just call or search “Celtic monks in america”, “st Brendan’s voyage to america”, “tim severin”, & “West Virginia petroglyphs of ancient ogham/oyam” Owise may start with http://www.oodegr.com/english/brit_celt_orthodoxy/celts_america.htm
This just popped up on Facebook. Interesting.
https://allthatsinteresting.com/lanse-aux-meadows-viking-settlement