Christ the King Cathedral in Reykjavík

 

You might feel strange that I begin to talk about my travels through Iceland with this Roman Catholic church. Shortly before I've left Germany to go to Iceland, I visited a church in the Eifel mountains and saw a copy of the “bonifatiusblatt“, in which there have been two articles on Iceland [1]. One has been on Christ the King Cathedral (Basilíka Krists konungs) in Reykjavík, so this primed me to visit this church and the other has been about church pews being donated to the parish of Keflavík, which I could not visit.

Seeing Christ the King Cathedral in Reykjavík, my first association has been Bates Motel of the 1960 movie Psycho [2]. Coming closer this association vanished. I wasn't surprised seeing the “bonifatiusblatt“ in the church as the first article had a description of a multiethnic mass with namely Icelandic, German, Polish, Philippine people attending as well as other nationalities not mentioned. Catholics represent about 4% of the Icelandic population, but ”they are growing in number rapidly“ [3].

There had been a small chapel after 1864, but the neo-gothic church had been constructed in the late 1920ies and sanctified in 1929 [4]. There isn't much information on this church in Reykjavík on Wikipedia, but there are other sources as well. The decision to build this church after a sketch by the Icelandic architect Guðjón Samúelsson has already been made in 1918. The homepage of the Catholic Church in Iceland has more on the Cathedral's history, architecture, and church objects as well as some very old photographs [5].

Outside the church there are the Protection of Life Bell and a statue by the name of The calling (Köllun), I wanted to check out and found a catholic nun on Google Maps [6]. The monument commemorates the work of the Order of Saint Joseph’s Sisters of Chambéry for the Sick and Children in Iceland and was unveiled on September the 17th 2000. The Order ran schools and hospitals in Iceland for over a hundred years, but they finally left the country in 2001; see [5] for the complete text, which I have abbreviated.

Christ the King Cathedral is located near the center of Reykjavík (less than 500 m west of the Tjörnin), so you could walk by exploring the city.

Links and Annotations:
[1] https://shop.bonifatiuswerk.de/Zeitschriften/Zeitschrift-Bonifatiusblatt.html
[2] Psycho is a1960 horror / thriller movie by Alfred Hitchcock.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psycho_(1960_film)
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_in_Iceland  
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_the_King_Cathedral_(Reykjav%C3%ADk) and  https://is.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basil%C3%ADka_Krists_konungs  
[5] https://catholica.is/en/domkirkja-krists-konungs-i-landakoti/
[6] https://www.google.de/maps/@64.1479753,-21.9483033,3a,73y,210.01h,72.52t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1swc6cLWbdiENFcvEheloZcw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 July 2013

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