Sigurbjörn Einarsson

Sigurbjörn Einarsson

Sigurbjörn Einarsson (born June 30, 1911 in Efri-Steinsmýri, Vestur-Skaftafellssýsla , Iceland ; † August 28, 2008 in Reykjavík ) was an Icelandic Evangelical Lutheran theologian and hymn poet . He was Bishop of Iceland from 1959 to 1981 .

Life

The son of a farmer grew up in the south of Iceland. After graduating from high school, which he passed on the Menntaskólinn in Reykjavík in 1931, he first began studying Classical Philology and History at Uppsala University . His exams in 1936 with a focus on Greek, he followed a short stay at Stockholm University . In Reykjavík, he obtained the state examination in Protestant theology in 1938 . Further studies, including on the subject of the New Testament , took him to various European universities between 1939 and 1948, first to Uppsala, and finally to Cambridge and Basel .

As early as September 1, 1938, Sigurbjörn was pastor in the towns of Hvammstangi , Vesturhópi and Breiðabólstaður in northwest Iceland. In 1941 he moved back to Reykjavík, where he held a pastor's post at Hallgrímskirkja , the largest church in the city, for three years . In 1944 he was first appointed as a lecturer at the University of Iceland , and in 1949 as professor of theology.

Sigurbjörn took up the post of Bishop of Iceland in 1959 as the successor to Ásmundur Guðmundsson and was head of the Icelandic State Church until 1981. At the same time he headed the Icelandic Bible Society, of which he had been a board member since 1948. Also between 1959 and 1981 he was chairman of the Nordic Ecumenical Institute and the hymn committee. He himself emerged as the author of sacred songs, some of which were translated into German (The sun sinks into the sea) .

His translation of the so-called “last sermons” of Martin Niemoeller , which he had given before his deportation to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp , had already appeared in 1945 . Sigurbjörn not only wrote an abundance of academic-theological writings, for example on the Revelation of John , but in 1955 also a book about the life of Albert Schweitzer . On the 300th anniversary of the death of the important poet Hallgrímur Pétursson, he published a German-Icelandic edition of his Passion Psalms in 1974.

In 1961 the University of Iceland awarded him an honorary doctorate , and in 1975 the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg .

Sigurbjörn Einarsson had been married to the seamstress Magnea Þorkelsdóttir, who died in 2006, since 1933. The marriage had eight children, including the composer Þorkell Sigurbjörnsson and the theologian Karl Sigurbjörnsson , who was also appointed Bishop of Iceland in 1998.

Web links

• Obituary for Sigurbjörn Einarsson (Icelandic)
• Literature by and about Sigurbjörn Einarsson in the catalog of the German National Library

predecessor	Office	successor
Ásmundur Guðmundsson	Bishop of Iceland 1959–1981	Pétur Sigurgeirsson

Note: Icelanders are referred to by their first name or first and last name, but not just their surname. Further information can be found under Icelandic personal name .