Saint Olaf’s Fiery Conversion Of The Lake Vangsmjøse Region
This Christian King fought to eradicate false religions, and to establish Orthodox Christianity as the sole religion of his kingdom
The holy, glorious, right-victorious martyr and right-believing King Olaf II of Norway was born in 995 A.D., and ruled Norway from 1015 to 1028, when he was exiled. He died two years later on the field of battle at Stiklestad, killed for his support of the Christian faith and his attempt to unite Norway into one nation. His feast day is July 29. He should not be confused with his predecessor Olaf Tryggvason (King Olaf I of Norway).
He was baptized as a child by Archbishop Robert. In his early youth he went to England, where he took part in many battles and became earnestly interested in Christianity. He was elected King of Norway, and made it his object to extirpate heathenism and make the Christian religion the basis of his kingdom.
Saint Olaf and his band of warriors trekked in secrecy to the vicinity of Lake Vangsmjøse and, upon arriving in the region, he pulled off an impressive heist, commandeering a majority of the ships owned by the locals living around the lake. After turning the privately-owned ships of Vangsmjøse into his own personal armada in the lake, King Olaf called an assembly of people from the lake-bound towns. From his ships, or just a few steps away from the safety of water, King Olaf offered an ultimatum to the people of the Lake Vangsmjøse region—accept Christianity or face the consequences. Yet, local turnout for the assembly was great, and they reportedly arrived with weapons and no intention to convert. To the credit of both parties, no violence was said to have erupted at the assembly, but neither was any progress made on Olaf’s desired mass-conversion. As night approached, King Olaf II halted the assembly and everyone retired for the night. Neither side, however, would sleep peacefully.
As the story goes, both King Olaf and the people of Lake Vangsmjøse were plotting ways to obtain leverage that night. The locals reportedly were bringing in more and more people overnight, pooling all of the inhabitants of the region at the meeting location in order to further overwhelm the king during the next assembly. King Olaf II did not like the way events were unfolding, so he reportedly decided that very night to make the people of Lake Vangsmjøse pay for their hesitance to accept his offer of conversion. As told by Snorri Sturluson (c. 1179-1241) in his Heimskringla — a medieval collection of sagas about the kings of Norway — Saint Olaf decided to row his ships “straight across the lake during the night. There he had his men enter the settlements and burn and plunder, and on the day following they rowed from headland to headland, burning all the settlements” (Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, Saint Olaf’s Saga, chapter 121).
At the assembly site, the masses of locals soon saw the smoke billowing from their homes and farms, and they quickly began racing home to put out the fires. Their progress was slow, however, for King Olaf had already stolen their ships. As a result, the locals of Lake Vangsmjøse had to take the long way, running by foot around the lake’s shoreline. When the masses reached the charred and burning homesteads on the far side of the lake, they found the destroyed region suspiciously empty of King Olaf’s warriors. According to Snorri Sturluson, this was because “the king crossed the lake again and burned the countryside on both shores” (Heimskringla, Saint Olaf’s Saga, chapter 121). Therefore, even if the rushing masses had managed to salvage the towns burned in the night and morning, they now would have turned around to see the other side of the lake burning, too.
With many of the villages and farms around the lake smoldering, the locals decided to submit to King Olaf’s demands. Snorri Sturluson continued the story, writing, “Then the king had all the people baptized… He had churches built and consecrated, and placed priests there to serve them” (Heimskringla, Saint Olaf’s Saga, chapter 121). Following the forced conversion, the installation of priests, and the construction of churches, he left the region.
from an account written by C. Keith Hansley
Sources: Orthodox Wiki & The Historian’s Hut
Wow - this guy sounds like a real demon. Such wicked evil behavior -- and this is supposed to be the proud foundation of Christianity in Norway? This is sick.