For a long time, Scandinavia and the whole of Nordic Europe was not thought of as a particularly Catholic place. Lutheranism is the established church in many of its countries and dominates the population. I once visited Finland (Nordic, not Scandinavian, and sharing space with the Orthodox) and stopped in Helsinki’s Catholic cathedral, where I ran into a priest decorating a Christmas tree. Turned out he was the bishop, and he told me about his six parishes across the diocese — which was coextensive with Finland.

In recent years, however, thanks to some very solid episcopal choices, foreign missionaries and immigration, Catholicism is making a comeback in the Nordic countries — and not just among foreigners. In a highly secularized environment, many young Nordics are discovering that the Church might have answers to the existential questions that nag them and the emptiness with which secularism replies.

Let’s not forget that, once upon a time, Catholicism was quite active in those countries. The Church honors “three kings” as saints on July 10 — not Kasper, Melchior, and Balthasar but Canute of Denmark, Erik of Sweden and Olaf of Norway. Two — Canute and Erik — were martyrs.

They were all men of the 11th and 12th centuries, i.e., as mainland Europe was slowly moving toward the renewal of the Middle Ages. In Scandinavia, it was a time when all three countries were gradually consolidating as monarchies and figuring out their (long-to-be-disputed) relationships with each other. It was also a time that kings hoped to use a common faith — Catholicism — as a way to coalesce their countries nationally and to uproot old Nordic paganism. Not all Vikings and their heirs necessarily agreed with the latter.

Denmark’s Canute was born around the year 1042. The earliest records speak of him as a young man raiding England, where he seemed to have stayed until he was around 30. His brother Harald became king in 1076; Canute went into exile in Sweden. Remember, in those days, what is now southern Sweden — Scania — was part of Denmark: “Sweden” would have been further north.

Harald reigned for four years, then Canute (Canute IV) succeeded him in 1080. As king, he allied himself to and lavishly supported the Church, offering it many benefices. He was especially generous to the cathedrals in Lund (now in Sweden — see its astronomical clock) and Roskilde (the place of burial of Danish royalty), and enhanced clerical privileges.

Canute was ambitious: he believed himself also entitled to be King of England and was about to launch an invasion of that sceptered island when he was tied down in southern Denmark. The peasants who were part of his fighting forces broke off, more internal politics intervened, and Canute fled to Odense. There, with 18 other men (including his brother Benedict), he was killed in 1086 by the rebels’ lances as he prayed at the altar. His popular cult emerged almost immediately on his death, and he was canonized in 1101.

Olaf (Olaf Haraldsson, “Olaf the Large”) was born probably just before the turn of the millennium, c. A.D. 995. Son of a local king, the date of his baptism is disputed — some put it in 998, others as late as 1010 in France. He, too, started out life on Viking raids into England, but he came into contact with Catholicism and was converted. Becoming king of Norway in 1015, he also took it upon himself to promote the Christianization of the country; at this earlier date, that also involved greater struggles with Norse paganism.

Let’s also not forget that, for these kings, the promotion of religious unity also served to promote national unity, which paired advocates of the old religious ways with local nobility unhappy that enhanced national unity under a king meant less local power under them.

The rebels eventually allied with the English and Danish to drive Olaf out of Norway, to which he returned two years later at the head of an army at the Battle of Stiklestad where, in 1030, Olaf died. Buried in Trondheim, his cult also spread quickly, and he was canonized. Paradoxically, although Norway is overwhelmingly Lutheran, Olaf remains a figure of cross-denominational national veneration because of his work to consolidate Norwegian identity and independence. Of all the Scandinavian countries, Norway’s survival as an independent entity has been most unstable. Long passed between the Danish and Swedish crowns, modern Norway acquired its independence from Sweden only in 1905.

Like his counterparts, Erik IX of Sweden is primarily recognized for his efforts to spread Christianity in the region, not just in Sweden but especially in Finland, which long had a contentious relationship with Sweden. One of the last regions of Europe to be converted from paganism to Christianity was the eastern regions of the Baltic Sea, i.e., parts of Finland and the Baltic states. Erik, too, was slain by the nobility for his religious and national consolidation efforts.

Some may criticize the blend of religion and nationalism, but that was the way things were in those days. Becoming Holy Roman Emperor at papal hands and bringing Rome’s liturgical books to his court didn’t just mean Charlemagne politically consolidated — it meant that Catholicism put its stamp on the region we today call France, the Low Countries and Germany. Even if their Catholicism is anemic, it’s still there.

Mieszko’s baptism helped consolidate his control in Poland and make him independent of ambitious German overlords as neighbors. That problem persists till today, but so does a vibrant Catholicism in Poland. And even if the political consequences of the Scandinavian three kings’ work have lasted more than the Church, there are still embers which, in our day, we’re seeing beginning again to glow brightly.

History takes unexpected turns. One reason Minnesota and North Dakota are full of Norwegians and Swedes is that 150 years ago, those countries were poor. Today, they may be economically prosperous but spiritually hungry. Who knows “what great things God has prepared for those that love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9).

Christian von Benzon’s 1843 painting, “The Death of St. Canute,” depicts his martyrdom in St. Albanus Church, Odense, Denmark (the city where the painting is, although von Benzon painted it in Dusseldorf). Canute and his defender — presumably brother Benedict — are in the light at the altar; his murderers in the dark. (Dark colors were supposedly a preference of the Dusseldorf School, which influenced von Benzon.)

The king’s focus, in prayer, is already on the next world; his defense he leaves to another. His prayer book, open, is on the altar steps. The flames on the altar candles are blowing out, physically a sign of the ruckus in the church, symbolically, of the king’s extinguishing life. Madonna and Child look down from the altar. A chalice stands atop the altar, reminding us of what Canute defended — and also perhaps an allusion to the Last Sacraments?

Two of Canute’s party already lie dead, trampled, at the foot of the altar. Spears are already trained on the king and his defender. That the hordes are interlopers is noted: two are breaking into the church through a window beside the altar. Painted at the height of the Romantic movement, the painting has all the appropriate characteristics: a grand presentation of turning points in national history, luxurious detail, grand.

For more reading, see here, here and here.