Thomas von Westen
Norwegian missionary (1682–1727)
Thomas von Westen (13 September 1682 – 9 April 1727) was a Norwegian Lutheran priest and missionary. He was a driving force in the Sami mission, and founded the education institution Seminarium Scholasticum, the later Seminarium Lapponicum, in Trondheim.
Personal life
Von Westen was born in Trondheim in Søndre Trondhjem, Norway. He was the son of Arnoldus von Westen (1643–1698) and his second wife, Inger Marie Thomasdatter Meyer. His father was a pharmacist at Løveapoteket Apothecary. His grandfather had been mayor of Trondheim.
Career
Von Westen attended Trondheim Cathedral School and was educated for the priesthood at the University of Copenhagen where he took his Artium Baccalaureus degree in 1698. He received his Cand.theol. in 1699. After completing his education, he started working as a priest in Helgeland.
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This entry incorporates text from “Thomas von Westen” 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.