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Catholic Church in Iceland

Open-knowledge reference entry

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 25, 2026
Entity authorityQ1187861 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Catholic Church in Iceland (Icelandic: Kaþólska kirkjan á Íslandi) is part of the Catholic Church, under the spiritual leadership of the Pope. The island is served by a single diocese, the Diocese of Reykjavík, having a total of seven parishes. As of 2015, the ordinary is bishop Dávid Bartimej Tencer. The diocese is directly subject to the Holy See. Besides that there is one parish of Ukrainian Greek Catholic church under the jurisdiction of Apostolic Exarchate of Germany and Scandinavia.

Statistics

As of 2022, there are 14,723 Catholics in Iceland, with 6 diocesan priests, 9 religious order priests, and 38 sisters in religious orders. Catholics represent 3.91% of the Icelandic population and are growing in number rapidly, due in large part to Polish immigration to Iceland. In an interview with Catholic foundation Aid to the Church in Need, Bishop David Tencer said he believes the real number of Catholics could be closer to 50,000. The Diocese of Reykjavík covers the whole of Iceland. The diocese has a cathedral, Christ the King Cathedral (Dómkirkja Krists Konungs) in Reykjavík, and a number of smaller churches and chapels in the larger towns around the country.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Catholic Church in Iceland” is open-knowledge reference entry. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Catholic, Church and Iceland, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2015, 2022—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Catholic, Church and Iceland is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “open-knowledge reference entry” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1187861. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2015 and 2022.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Catholic Church in Iceland”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Catholic Church in Iceland primary sources, Catholic Church in Iceland archive and Catholic research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Catholic Church in Iceland” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.