First Catholic ordination at Protestant shrine

The first Catholic priest since the Reformation has been ordained at the Protestant Church of Norway’s Nidaros Cathedral, writes Christa Pongratz-Lippitt.

Built over the burial site of St Olaf, Norway’s patron saint, who was King of Norway in the eleventh century, the cathedral was taken over by the Lutheran Church at the Reformation. It is the northernmost medieval cathedral.

Egil Mogstad, 65, was ordained by the Catholic Bishop of Oslo, Bernt Ivar Eidsvig, but many Lutherans attended the ceremony. Catholic-Lutheran relations are very close and the two denominations celebrate many Christian feasts together. “I have my Lutheran friends to thank that I was ordained in the cathedral. I would never have dared to make such a request myself,” Fr Mogstad, who is a keen ecumenist, said. “St Olaf is neither Catholic nor Protestant. He died as a Christian for all of us here in Norway,” he added.

The number of Catholics in the Trondheim area, where Fr Mogstad will be based, has doubled with the arrival of thousands of Catholic guest workers.