Eastern Orthodoxy in Norway

Our Saviour's Orthodox Church in Oslo.

Eastern Orthodoxy in Norway is a small minority religion in Norway with 7,664 members in 2009, up from 2,315 in 2000, making it the fastest-growing religion in Norway with a rate of 231.1% compared to Islam's 64.3%.

Year	Orthodox	Percent
1980	?	?
1990	1,222	0.02%
2000	2,315	0.05%
2005	5,028	0.10%
2009	7,664	0.15%

The Russian Orthodox Church in Norway

The Russian Orthodox church in Barentsburg, Svalbard (Template:Lang-ru). Barentsburg is the second largest settlement on Svalbard, with about 500 inhabitants, almost entirely Russians and Ukrainians. The Russian-owned Arktikugol has been mining coal here since 1932, and during the Cold War Barentsburg was a hotbed of activity as the Russians attempted to expand their zone of control over the islands.

Norway has since the Viking era have been in contact with the neighboring Russian church. Several of the Viking chiefs stayed in Kiev and Novgorod, which from the end of the 900s were important centers of Orthodox Christianity. Through political and cultural links, trade links, and dynastic marriages, Norway had early knowledge of the eastern Christian faith. In the 1500s, seemed a Russian missionary, St. Trifon the Petjenga, among the Sami people in Norwegian land and he built an Orthodox chapel at Neidenelven (river). Russian priests and monks visited Northern Norway until World War II. After the socialist revolution in 1917 arrived at a number of Orthodox refugees to Norway. The Russian Orthodox Church organized pastoral work among them through his church in Stockholm (the first Orthodox church in Western Europe, founded at 1617). In 1931, Hl. Nikolai church established in Oslo. This congregation of the Russian tradition of sorts under the Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Church belongs not to the law of the Russian Orthodox Church of Moscow Patriarchate.

Through immigration that has taken place since the late 1900s, and increasingly lively contacts of the border, the Russian Orthodox Church's role in a natural way become more important in today's Norway. In 1996, in Oslo, formed a separate congregation - HL. Olga church - under Moscow Patriarchate jurisdiction. Today, there are independent churches in Stavanger, Bergen and Kirkenes. Besides, the Russian Orthodox Church activities in Tromsø, Trondheim and in the Russian settlement of Barentsburg on Svalbard.

The Greek Orthodox Church in Norway

The congregation was founded in 1965 with main purpose to serve the Greek-speaking Greek Orthodox in Norway. Church fall under Metropolita Pavlos Menevissoglou of Sweden and Scandinavia, based in Stockholm. Parish priest Archimandrite Evmenios Likakis and others.

See also

• Christianity in Norway

External links

• The Russian Orthodox Church in Norway - Norwegian and Russian
• The Greek Orthodox Church in Norway - Norwegian and Greek