Rebuilding the archdiocese of Nidaros: Etienne Djunkowsky and the North Pole Mission, c . 1855–1870

The Prefecture Apostolic of the Polar Regions (‘North Pole Mission’), which ran between 1855 and 1869, was an attempt to bring the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church to a broadly defined circumpolar area. From its initial base in Alta, in northern Norway, the mission expanded to establish a pres...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Innes Review
Main Author: Newby, Andrew G.
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Edinburgh University Press 2010
Subjects:
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/inr.2010.0003
https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/full-xml/10.3366/inr.2010.0003
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Summary:The Prefecture Apostolic of the Polar Regions (‘North Pole Mission’), which ran between 1855 and 1869, was an attempt to bring the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church to a broadly defined circumpolar area. From its initial base in Alta, in northern Norway, the mission expanded to establish a presence in: Iceland; the Faroe Islands; Orkney, Shetland and Caithness; and Tromsø. This article explores the reasons behind the mission's expansion into northern Scotland, and the reaction which greeted the arrival of foreign missionaries in a region which had been relatively untouched by Catholicism in the three centuries since the Reformation.