A brief history of Norway’s Christianity

David Moe Sun City, Calif. Olaf II Haraldsson, born in around A.D. 995, is credited with Christianizing Norway. As a teenager, he went to the Baltics, Denmark, and England, and wintered with Duke Richard II of Normandy on his way home. It was here he converted to Christianity and was baptized at the Notre Dame Cathedral. He returned to Norway in 1015 and declared himself king. He then put an army together and rode into the countryside to tell the peasants to become Christians or die. The peasants rose up against him, and he was killed at the Battle of Stiklestad on July 29, 1030. He was buried under the Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim and later declared a Saint by the Roman Catholic Church. During the Ref