Jón Helgason (21 June 1866 – 19 March 1942) was an Icelandic theologian who served as

Bishop of Iceland The following is a list of Evangelical Lutheran Church of Iceland, Evangelical Lutheran bishops of Iceland. The first bishop of Iceland was Geir Vídalín who took office in 1801. As of 2024, 15 people have held the office of Bishop of Iceland. Li ...

from 1917 till 1939.

Biography

Helgason was born in

Álftanes Álftanes () is the name of a town and a collection of small peninsulas in Iceland. It means ''swan peninsula''. The best known of these peninsulas extrudes from the eastern part of Reykjanes with the town of the same name in the Capital Region ...

, on June 21, 1866, the son of the Reverend Helgi Hálfdanarson, later the rector of the Prestaskólinn (the Icelandic Seminary), and his wife Þórhildur Tómasdóttir. He came from a well-known family, including his grandfather Tómas Sæmundsson, a professor at Breiðabólstaður. Jón studied at the Reykjavik School between 1880 and 1886, then completed his degree and sailed the same summer in Copenhagen, where he completed various university degrees, including in Theology in 1892. He was taught in Reykjavík between 1892 and 1893, worked at a church in Denmark in 1893, completed two further examinations from the school in

Höfn Höfn () or Höfn í Hornafirði (, ) is an Icelandic fishing town in the southeastern part of the country. It lies near Hornafjörður fjord. The town, the second largest in the southeastern part of Iceland, offers scenic views of Vatnajökull ...

in 1894 and then travelled through Germany with a grant from the Danish government. There he learned about the German Bible and the publications of the prehistoric liberal theology. In 1908 he was appointed director of the Prestaskóli. He was professor of theology at the University of Iceland 1911-1916, Dean of the Faculty of Theology for several years and the rector of the university between 1914 and 1915. Appointed Bishop of Iceland in 1916 and consecrated in 1917, and was granted an honorary doctorate in theology from the

University of Copenhagen The University of Copenhagen (, KU) is a public university, public research university in Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark. Founded in 1479, the University of Copenhagen is the second-oldest university in Scandinavia, after Uppsala University. ...

that same year and from the

University of Iceland The University of Iceland ( ) is a public research university in Reykjavík, Iceland, and the country's oldest and largest institution of higher education. Founded in 1911, it has grown steadily from a small civil servants' school to a modern co ...

in 1936. He retired on January 1, 1939."Jón Helgason biskup"
''gardur''. Retrieved on 18 July 2019. He wrote numerous books including: *Uppruni Nýja testamentisins, 1904 *Almenn kristnisaga I-IV, 1912–30 *Grundvöllurinn er Kristur, 1915 *Þegar Reykjavík var 14 vetra, 1916 *Hirðisbréf, 1917 *Islands Kirke I-II, Kh. 1922-25 *Kristnisaga Íslands I-II, 1925–27 *Íslendingar í Danmörku, 1931 *Kristur vort líf, predikanir, 1932 *Meistari Hálfdan, 1935 *Hannes Finnsson biskup, 1936 *Jón Halldórsson í Hítardal, 1939 *Tómas Sæmundsson, 1941 *Þeir sem settu svip á bæinn, 1941 *Árbækur Reykjavíkur 1786-1936, 1941

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jon Helgason 1866 births 1942 deaths Jón Helgason Academic staff of the University of Iceland Rectors of the University of Iceland 19th-century Icelandic Lutheran bishops 20th-century Icelandic Lutheran bishops