Saints and Martyrs

 Times are Changing.

        November  seems to be our transition month . It begins with All Saints Day,   Nov 1

             honoring  all  saints known and unknown, a national holiday in many countries.

The feast of All Saints began in the ninth century during the reign of the Byzantine Emperor, Leo VI "the Wise" (886–911). His wife was known to have lived a devout life. After her death, her husband built a church intending to dedicate it to her. When he was forbidden to do so, he decided to dedicate it to "all saints", so that if his wife were in fact one of the righteous, she would also be honored whenever the feast was celebrated. According to tradition, it was Leo who expanded the feast, to a general commemoration of All Saints, whether martyrs or not. This  may not be the true origin of All Saints' Day , but it has been accepted and observed on various days in different places. Many ‘saints’ suffered persecution and a violent death while others welcomed the release from mortal life. The definition of  ‘a martyr’ is considered to be one who chooses to suffer death rather than renounce religious principles. These are considered victims and are honored and revered by most.

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Currently, there are  worldwide problems of political and religious conflicts that has changed this

view. Groups of  Mideastern ‘fundamentalists’ have chosen a very narrow interpretation of their ‘religion’ and  violently opposing anyone choosing to disagree with their ‘new  law’.
   These radicalists are convinced that their motivations are grounded in faith and directly tied to religious scripture.They seek to live in accordance with laws and scripture dating back thousands of years and carry out their onslaught  without any shred of guilt or shame. Their ‘cause’ is rewarded by the belief that any male soldier dying in battle will be rewarded in their afterlife with the companionship of a bevy of 'willing maidens of their age'. In this way, the soldier desires to become a martyr and be honored by their fighting companions.

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In  The Viking age, Nordic countries were mostly pagan while North Europe had earlier become Christianized. As kings and kingdoms changed territorial rules, these new kings forced their beliefs upon the conquered  people. Those that resisted were eliminated; many becoming the new ‘martyrs’ and later saints.
Many ‘saints’ suffered persecution and a violent death while others welcomed the release from mortal life.

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In Norse mythology, Odin was the king of  Asgard, one of  Nine Worlds and home to a tribe of gods.  He was a god of war and death and the god of wisdom and poetry. Along with being a god, he was the ‘All-Father of all the Nordic Gods’.

He lived in Valhalla (pronounced “val-HALL-uh”; “the hall of the fallen”). This was believed to be a hallowed hall located “near gods and elves” where the god Odin housed the dead whom he deemed worthy of dwelling with him. Being  a place of perpetual fighting ,warfare was associated with religion, however pagan
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One of the most revered Norwegian kings become a saint and a martyr. Olaf Haraldsson, the son of King Harald Grenske of Norway spent most of his youth as a Norse raider until 1010 when he was baptized at Rouen, France. In 1015, after succeeding to the throne, he started a war to free Norway from the domination of the Danes and the Swedes. 

He also requested that missionaries be sent from England to advance the Christianization of Norway. While neither popular nor especially holy during his lifetime, Olaf was soon revered after death owing to reports of miracles occurring at his tomb. He was  respected as a champion of Norway’s independence, and his shrine became the foundation of the cathedral of Trondheim, a popular place of pilgrimage during the Middle Ages. He became the patron of Norway, and honored as well as in having his name as a major college in our country.

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There are numerous saints who have become known as martyrs and honored annually, however, there are some that are not so well-known, but honored for their deeds.Whims and wishes of early Kings was to be done without question. Daughters of kings became property of invading kings in order  to settle demands.

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Lucia of Syracuse (283–304)is known as a young Christian martyr who died under the Roman rule. Christians were persecuted for their faith,  forced to endure horrific torture and often met painful ends. According to later accounts, she refused the Roman governor's advances and to punish her, the governor ordered the guards to gouge out her eyes; Lucy, whose name can mean
"light" or "lucid," became the patron saint of the blind. Her feast once coincided with the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year and her feastday has become a festival of light. December 13th has become an important day of remembrance for St. Lucia., also known as Saint Lucy, or in Italian: Santa Lucia.

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Another young maiden became involved in the spoils of war.

 Philomena  was the daughter of a king in Greece who, with his wife, had converted to Christianity. At the age of about 13, she took a vow of consecrated virginity. When the Roman Emperor Diocletian threatened to make war on her father's kingdom, her father and his family traveled to Rome to ask for peace. The emperor fell in love with the young Philomena  and to avoid warfare, the father agreed to give his daughter to the emporer. Despite her father’s demands, she refused to be the emporer’s wife. When she continued to refuse his  demands to marry , the emperor subjected her to a series of torments: scourging, being shot with arrows, and  drowning in order to change her decision. Two Angels responded to her aid curing her each time. Finally, giving up his quest, the emperor had her decapitated.

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           An Viking attack in Ireland resulted in another incident of  a leader becoming enamored with beautiful maidens.

 Sunniva was to be the heir of an Irish kingdom, but had to flee when an invading heathen king wanted to marry her. To escape his advances, she with her brother Alban  and their followers sailed to the island of Selja in Norway during the rule of the pagan Jarl Hákon Sigurðarson ( 962–995). Their pagan Norwegian neighbors on the mainland later suspected the Christians of stealing sheep and complained to Jarl Hákon.

 Hákon arrived on Selja with a group of armed men, intending to kill the accused inhabitants. When the Christians realized what is happening, they hide in caves on the island and prayed to God to collapse the caves to spare them from being ravaged by Hákon and his men. The caves collapsed killing all those in the cave. Later, travellers noticed a supernatural light over the island and arriving in Trondheim, the men told their experience to King Olaf Tryggvason. After another later account of similar events by different witnesses, the king travelled to Selja, excavated the cave and recovered the body of  Sunniva that appeared as if the woman was asleep. Numerous institutions in Norway are named after her, including the Catholic church in Molde, various schools, including St Sunniva School in Oslo,as well as several Norwegian ships and the St. Sunniva dormitory in Bergen,. The short form Synne  has  become the most popularly given form of this name peaking in popularity in the late 1980s .

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Many saints' names have been recalled as children have been named either in their memory or because the name itself is attractive. At our latest Sons of Norway public dinner, a very young girl was enjoying her meal.She was only " Two fingers old", and her mother mentioned her name was "Sunni." When asked how she got that name, the mother replied that the little girl was named for Saint Sunniva. In  family visits to Norway and Oslo, they had learned about St Sunniva, and their next little girl was named in honor and memory of the Norwegian saint.

  The present lives on in memory of the past.