Religion in Greenland
religion in the country
The majority of the Greenlandic population is Christian and associates with the Church of Denmark via the Church of Greenland, which is Protestant in classification and Lutheran in orientation. The Church of Denmark is the established church through the Constitution of Denmark; this applies to all of the Kingdom of Denmark, except for the Faroe Islands, as the Church of the Faroe Islands became independent in 2007. But traditional Inuit spiritual beliefs remain strong in many of Greenland's remote communities.
Christianity
Lutheranism, mostly represented by the Church of Denmark, is the predominant religious category within Christianity, followed by small communities of Baptists, Mormons, Roman Catholics, Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh-day Adventists, Presbyterians, Calvinists, Evangelists, and Orthodox Christians.
History
Christianity was first brought to Greenland in AD 1000 by Norse settlers. It is not certain what happened to the Norse but they eventually disappeared, likely because of an increasingly harsh climate, decline in trade with mainland Europe, and possibly conflicts with native tribes. The diocese of Greenland was known as the Diocese of Garðar. The first bishop of Garðar, Arnaldur, was ordained by the Archbishop of Lund in 1124. He arrived in Greenland in 1126 and began the construction of Garðar Cathedral which was dedicated to the patron saint of sailors, St Nicholas. This ancient diocese fell into disuse in the 14th century with the death of Bishop Álfurin 1377.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Religion in Greenland” is religion in the country. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Religion, Greenland and religion, not as a finished interpretation.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q18603767. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2007, 1000, 1124 and 1126.
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This entry incorporates text from “Religion in Greenland” 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.