Norwegian Bishop Eivind Berggrav

Norwegian bishop Eivind Berggrav (right) and the famous Norwegian author Ronald Fangen talking in a concentration camp about the serious situation in Norway. A prominent author and playwright, Fangen was a staunch opponent of the Nazi ideology and was also imprisoned in a concentration camp for his political and religious convictions.   

 

Eivind Josef Berggrav (25 October 1884 – 14 January 1959) was a Norwegian Lutheran bishop. As primate of the Church of Norway (Norwegian: Preses i Bispemøtet i Den norske kirke), Berggrav became known for his central role in the Church of Norway's resistance against the Nazi occupation of Norway during World War II. Berggrav also became an important figure in 20th-century ecumenical movement and served as president of the United Bible Societies.

Background

Berggrav was born Eivind Jensen in Stavanger and raised in Asak in Østfold. His father, Otto Jensen (like his father before him) was an educator and parish priest, who when Eivind was 22 became for a short time Norway's National Minister of Education and Church Affairs in a coalition government before returning to his Skjeberg parish. Rev. Jensen later became dean in the Diocese of Kristiania, and, in the year before his death, bishop of the Diocese of Hamar. His wife, and Eivind's mother, was Marena Christine Pedersen (1846–1924). His sister's daughter was Kari Berggrav, the pioneer press photographer

Career

Eivind studied theology in Oslo at what was then the University of Kristiania beginning in 1903, and continued family tradition by becoming a priest in the Church of Norway. He changed his surname to that of his paternal grandmother's family: to Jensen Berggrav in 1907 and a decade later to simply Berggrav.

Upon graduating from the university in 1908, Jensen Berggrav taught school for a decade (at the Eidsvoll folkehøgskole, Holmestrand offentlige lærerskole and Akershus fylkesskole). He also started writing for the journal, Kirke i Kultur, which Berggrav continued to do intermittently for decades, until his death. During World War I Berggrav filed some stories as a war correspondent for the Morgenbladet, Norway's largest newspaper. Berggrav also became involved with the Østlandsk reisning political party and the Østlandsk ungdomsfylking youth movement with Alf Frydenberg. Both social movements sought to incorporate the language spoken in eastern Norway into the national written language. (See Norwegian language conflict).

Berggrav eventually was called as a parish priest in Hurdal, and he continued to study for his doctorate in theology at the university. In the three years after he received it in 1924, Rev. Berggrav also served as chaplain of Botsfengselet national prison in Oslo. In 1928 Berggrav was selected as bishop for the Diocese of Hålogaland based at Tromsø. He dedicated a number of new chapels as he served the largely rural diocese until 1937. In that year, although younger than many other candidates, Berggrav was selected bishop for the Diocese of Oslo, which although the first among equals, remains the highest position in Norway's national church. The funeral of Queen Maud the following year first brought Berggrav international attention. Except technically during his house arrest during 1942-1945 as discussed below, Berggrav continued to serve as bishop of Oslo and Preses of the Church of Norway until 1951.

Resistance Leader

Berggrav achieved international renown for leading the Church of Norway's resistance to the Nazi occupation of Norway during World War II, even though he was under isolated house arrest during most of the war.

In the years immediately before the war, Bergrrav worked with then Crown Prince Olav and others to try to mediate between Germany and England. Shocked by the German invasion of Norway on 9 April 1940, with its attempted capture of King Haakon VII, Berggrav initially appealed to Norwegian Christians to "refrain from any interference" and to refuse to "mix themselves up in the war by sabotage or in any other way." After King Haakon was forced to leave for England after 62 days of fighting, with his king's approval, Berggrav became the leader of the Administrative Council which tried to govern his occupied homeland. However, it became increasingly clear that the occupying Nazi powers would not honor their promises to allow Norwegians freedom of religion nor preserve their structures of government. On 25 September, the Nazis dissolved the Administrative Council, and instead backed a new government under Vidkun Quisling, a Norwegian priest's son who had a military career before becoming a Nazi sympathiser (and whom King Haakon refused to appoint as prime minister after the 1940 Nazi invasion).

A month later Berggrav led his six fellow bishops of the Church of Norway, with ten leaders of other denominations, to form the Christian Council for Joint Deliberation. When the Nazis ordered the Church of Norway to alter its liturgical practices, Bishop Berggrav refused to comply. Matters grew even more serious in January 1942 when the Nazis wound down their occupation government and allowed Quisling (head of a party with only 1% popular support) to try again. On 1 February 1942, a group of Quisling sympathizers invaded Nidaros Cathedral and by the end of the day refused the Cathedral's Dean Kjellbu entry to conduct services. Thousands of Norwegians gathered outside to sing "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God", and the following day all seven Norwegian bishops resigned.

Shortly after Easter, 1942, Berggrav was arrested, and Quisling tried to get him indicted, which provoked further public uproar. Along with four other members of the Christian Council, Berggrav was initially imprisoned in the Bredtvet concentration camp. Berggrav was saved from execution by Theodor Steltzer and Helmuth von Moltke, members of the Kreisau Circle and Schwarze Kapelle. Instead, the bishop was placed in solitary confinement at an isolated location in the forests north of Oslo, allowed to see no one but his guards.

After Berggrav's arrest, the confrontation between church and state escalated. In the spring of 1942 the bishops gave up their state offices, and a large majority of the pastors of the Church of Norway resigned their posts as state civil servants rather than accept NS control of church life; many teachers similarly refused to implement the new school policy and youth organisation. Because clergy were also civil servants, these collective resignations had both practical and symbolic significance and are often seen as a turning point in the church struggle (kirkekampen) during the occupation.

Some accounts relate that, with the tacit cooperation of his guards, Berggrav was on occasion able to leave his place of confinement in Asker to meet contacts in the Norwegian resistance, sometimes in disguise. In December 1944, Time featured Berggrav on its cover in connection with his role in the Norwegian church resistance.

Author and Publisher

Berggrav wrote many books, all in the Norwegian language, but some translated into English: The Norwegian Church in Its International Setting, Man and State, and With God in the Darkness, and Other Papers Illustrating the Norwegian Church Conflict. Berggrav founded an association focused on Norway's local history, Romerike Historielag, in 1920, and continued to contribute pieces long after he relinquished the helm upon becoming bishop. Berggrav also led the Norwegian Bible Society (Det Norske Bibelselskap) from 1938 to 1955, even after his retirement as Norway's primate.

Personal Life

Berggrav married Kathrine Seip (1883–1949), the daughter of pastor Jens Laurits Arup Seip (1852–1913). They remained married until her death in 1949. Their son Dag Berggrav became an important civil servant and sports administrator. Berggrav died in Oslo and was buried in Vår Frelsers Gravlund with a simple slab gravemarker.

Honors and Legacy

After World War II ended, Berggrav received Norway's highest medal, the Order of St. Olav.

President Harry S Truman awarded Bishop Berggrav the Medal of Freedom.

The Calendar of Saints of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America remembers Berggrav on 14 January.

In a 2005 poll for Norwegian of the Century (Store Norske) celebrating a century of Norwegian independence, Bishop Berggrav polled 19th (the winner being King Olav V).

Further Reading

Godal, Odd Eivind Berggrav: Leader of Christian Resistance (SCM Press. 1949)

Johnson, Alex and Harriet L. Overholt Johnson . Kjell Jordheim, translator. Eivind Berggrav, God's Man of Suspense (Augsburg Publishing House, 1960)

Robertson, Edwin Hanton Bishop of the Resistance: A Life of Eivind Berggrav, Bishop of Oslo, Norway ( Concordia Publishing House, 2001)

Molland, Einar Fra Hans Nielsen Hauge til Eivind Berggrav. Hovedlinjer i Norges kirkehistorie i det 19. og 20. århundre ( Oslo: Gyldendal, 1968)

Ronald Fangen

Ronald Fangen (29 April 1895 – 22 May 1946) was a Norwegian novelist, essayist, playwright, psalmist, journalist and literary critic.

Biography

Ronald August Fangen was born at Kragerø in Telemark, Norway. His parents were Sten August Fangen (1858-1933) and Alice Maud Lister (1864-1931). Following his parents' divorce when he was five years old, he lived partly with relatives in Bergen and partly at Finse. As a child, he was frequently ill. This strongly influenced him as did the death of an older brother who took his own life after being accused of school fraud.

Fangen became a journalist with the newspaper Verdens Gangin from 1913. Fangen made his literary debut in 1915 with the novel De svake. In 1923 he started the journal Vor Verden, with Henrik Groth as editor-in-chief. He served as chairman of the Norwegian Author's Association (Forfatterforeningen) from 1928-32.

Fangen issued several religious essays and publications during his career. Fangen is most commonly associated with the hymn Guds menighet er jordens største under (1942). With melody by Arild Sandvold (1895–1984), it was originally a part of the Missionary Canton of the Norwegian Missionary Society's 100th anniversary published in August 1942. The hymn has remained popular in Norway and was included in the Norsk salmebok in 1985 and 2013.

The Christian organization known as the Oxford Group came to Norway in 1934 at the invitation of C. J. Hambro, President of the Norwegian Parliament. Fangen joined it and soon became one of its leading personalities. In October 1934, Fangen took part in an Oxford Group house party, at the invitation of Carl Hambro. The Oxford Group had been founded by founded by the American Lutheran missionary Frank Buchman. Hambro invited 120 of his friends to meet Buchman and thirty companions at the Hotel Norge Høsbjør at Brumunddal. Garth Lean, Buchman’s biographer writes that: ‘Fangen, the novelist, brought two bottles of whisky and a crate of books, expecting boredom. He did not find time to open either. His change was immediately visible and long remembered. Even twenty years later, poet Alf Larsen spoke of the “hopeless naivety” of the Group's philosophy as compared with his own anthroposophy. It had however completely transformed Fangen, who before that, in his opinion, had been the most unpleasant man in Norway.’

He received Gyldendal's Endowment in 1940. In November 1940, Fangen was the first Norwegian writer to be arrested by during the Occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany. He arrest was due to an essay published in the periodical Kirke og Kultur. He was imprisoned at Møllergata 19 from October 1940 to January 1941. He was then transferred to Ullevål Hospital, since he was very ill during this period. After the liberation of Norway, Fangen was instrumental in the formation of the newspaper Vårt Land, which was first issued in August 1945.

In 1946, he perished in a plane crash on Snarøya near Oslo Airport Fornebu. Among biographers who have written about Fangen and his writings are Carl Fredrik Engelstad, Egil Yngvar Elseth, Reidar Huseby and Jan Inge Sørbø.

Selected Bibliography of Fangen’s Works

De svake (1915; novel)

Slægt føder slægt (1916; novel)

Streiftog i digtning og tænkning (1919; essays)

Syndefald (1920; play)

Fienden (1922; play)

Duel (1932; novel)

Dagen og veien (1934; essays)

En kristen verdensrevolusjon. Mitt møte med Oxforgruppebevegelsen (1935; essays)

Kristen enhet. Gruppebevegelsens økumeniske budskap (1937; essays)

Kristendommen og vår tid (1938 essays)

Kristent budskap til vår tid. Nordiske prekener (1939; essays)

Borgerfesten (1939; novel)

Krig og kristen tro (1940; essays)

En lysets engel (1945; novel)

I nazistenes fengsel (1975; notes from prison, posthumously)

Awards

Gyldendal's Endowment – 1940

Biographies

Carl Fredrik Engelstad (1946) Ronald Fangen: en mann og hans samtid (Oslo : Gyldendal)

Egil Yngvar Elseth (1953) Ronald Fangen. Fra humanist til kristen (Oslo : Gyldendal Norsk Forl.)

Bernt T. Oftestad (1981) Kristentro og kulturansvar hos Ronald Fangen (Oslo : Gyldendal)

Reidar Huseby, ed. (1995) Frihet, ansvar, tjeneste. Ronald Fangens liv og visjon (Verbum)

Jan Inge Sørbø (1999) Over dype svelg. Eit essay om Ronalds Fangens aktualitet, (Oslo : Gyldendal)

Stewart D Govig (2005) Ronald Fangen : Church and Culture in Norway (iUniverse, Inc.)

 

Bishop Eivind Berggrav and wife, of Norway, greeting U.S. Brigadier General Owen Summers and Chaplain Major Albin L. Fortney, in Rome, Italy, 11 July 1945. Original caption: "Bishop Eivind Berggrav of Norway, famed as the 'soul' of the resistance movement during the German occupation, greets U.S. officers in Oslo. Left to right are Bishop Berggrav, Mrs. Berggrav, Brigadier General Owen Summers and Chaplain Major Albin L. Fortney."

 

Eivind Berggrav in 1940. (Oslo Museum photo OB.RP21483b)

 

Bishop Eivind Berggrav in conversation with the man behind the evacuation with the white buses, Count Folke Bernadotte. 17 May 1945. (NTB photo) Bernadotte was behind, among other things, the white buses, which saved 30,000 prisoners from concentration camps. He later became a member of the UN Palestine Committee. Bernadotte was killed by Israeli terrorists on September 17, 1948.

 

Norwegian writer Ronald Fangen,  26 April 1932. (Galleri Nor Tilvekstnummer: NF.WA 03224 Internnr: NBR9407:02272)

 

The Norwegian writer Ronald Fangen photographed by the police guard on 24 June 1941, leaving Ullevål Hospital, where he had been held prisoner by the Germans. ( Scanned from Carl Frederik Engelstad: Ronald Fangen, p. 179. Oslo: Gyldendal, 1946)

 

The Norwegian writer Ronald Fangen (right) in Ullevål Hospital, guarded by a policeman. ( Scanned from Carl Frederik Engelstad: Ronald Fangen, p. 177. Oslo: Gyldendal, 1946)