Well, it's a very exciting week for us here at five minutes in church history.

This Saturday is Reformation Day. That's right. It is the five hundred and third anniversary of the Protestant

reformation. So it is only fitting that we return to that favorite subject of ours,

the Reformation.

But we'll be talking about a place, I'm pretty sure, we've never visited here at five

minutes in church history and that is Iceland.

The first reformed church in Iceland was built in 1533.

It was built by German Lutheran Fishermen.

They were traders with the Hansiatic League, that commercial league or coalition of Northern

Germany and across Northern Europe that was involved in fishing and trading

and so Germans were regularly in Iceland

and they brought the reformation with them.

Also, young men from Iceland would go to Germany's universities to study.

And during the 16th century, while they were there, they were exposed to the

reformation and reformation theology.

So how did the reformation come to Iceland

through these fishermen and through two heroes

of the Icelandic Reformation?

Gisser Einarsen and Oderkotskoksen. Prior to this time Iceland was Roman Catholic. It had been Roman

Catholic since 999 AD.

Through its history, it had two diocese and two bishops,

and often these bishops were rivals

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