Daniel Lindmark , Umeå University
Encounters between the Church and the Sámi People in the Lutheran North
The indigenous Sámi people’s first encounters with Christianity took place in the Middle Ages, but more systematic missionary efforts were not initiated until after the Reformation. The first religious books in Sámi language were printed in the early seventeenth century, when also the first churches were erected and parishes were founded in the Sámi region (Sápmi). The missionary efforts were tightly intertwined with the struggle for state dominance of the North.
After presenting the first encounters and missionary initiatives, the lecture will focus on the late seventeenth century, when the Lutheran Church of Sweden intensified its efforts to Christianize the Sámi people. In addition to depicting the measures taken by the Church, the lecture will disclose patterns of Sámi response.
Daniel Lindmark, born in 1960, is Professor of Church History at Umeå University, Sweden. In 1995 he earned his PhD in History, and in 2022 he received an honorary doctorate of Theology from Åbo Akademi University, Finland. His research interests include popular religion, revival movements, religious reading, religious education and religious use of history. Colonial encounters in the early modern period represents an area of special interest. His most recent publications focus on early modern Swedish church history: “Catechism Primers in Sweden” (in Learning to Read, Learning Religion, ed. Britta Juska-Bacher et al., John Benjamins, 2023); “The Church Examination Registers and the Development of Literacy in Early Modern Sweden” (in “Seelenbeschreibungen”, ed. Heinrich Richard Schmidt et al., de Gruyter, 2022). Large parts of his research concern the religious history of the North, including Sami missionary and church history. In the period 2012–2017 he was in charge of the white paper project on the historical relations between the Church of Sweden and the Sami, which spurred a research interest in processes of historical justice and reconciliation: “Reburial of Sami Human Remains as Ritualised Reconciliation” (in Trading Justice for Peace, ed. Sigríður Guðmarsdóttir et al., AOSIS, 2022). Lindmark moderates the Nordic research network Religious History of the North (REHN), which is currently preparing an edited volume on the early modern pastor in the North. Among his numerous publications, the following co-edited English-language volumes can be mentioned: The Sami and the Church of Sweden: Results from a White Paper Project (Gidlunds, 2018), Conservative Religion and Mainstream Culture: Opposition, Negotiation, and Adaptation (Palgrave, 2021), and Historical Justice and History Education (Palgrave, 2021). Lindmark is a working member of the Royal Skyttean Society, and the Royal Gustavus Adolphus Academy for Swedish Folk Culture. In 2022, he was awarded the Várdduo scientific prize for Sami research.
