ICELAND
International Business Times
By Zoe Mintz
For the first time in 1,000 years, Iceland will have a new temple dedicated to Norse gods. The house of worship will be a circular building built into a hill that overlooks the country’s capital, Reykjavik, Reuters reported.
The 3,800-square-foot-temple will belong to members of Ásatrúarfélagið, a neopagan faith that has tripled in size over the last decade in Iceland. The organization was founded in 1972 and had fewer than 100 members for nearly two decades. Today there are nearly 2,400 followers in the island nation of only 320,000 people.
“I don’t believe anyone believes in a one-eyed man who is riding about on a horse with eight feet,” Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson, high priest of Ásatrúarfélagið, told Reuters. “We see the stories as poetic metaphors and a manifestation of the forces of nature and human psychology.” …
The Ásatrúarfélagið denomination grew after its leader Sveinbjörn Beinteinsson died in 1993. This thrust the faith into the national spotlight. A sexual abuse scandal in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Iceland also led many to leave the pews.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.