Hans Egede

Statue in Nuuk

Hans Egede (January 31, 1686, Harstad, Northern Norway–November 5, 1758, Falster, Denmark) was a Norwegian Lutheran missionary, called the Apostle of Greenland. Egede was an evangelist on the northern Norwegian islands of Lofoten when he heard stories of a green land settled by the Vikings but with which contact had been lost years before. In May 1721, he asked Frederick IV of Denmark for permission to seek the colony and establish a mission there, presuming that they had remained Catholic or lost the Christian faith. Frederick gave consent at least partially to reestablish a colonial claim to the island. Image File history File linksMetadata Hans_Egede. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Hans_Egede. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (1536x2048, 501 KB) Hans Egedes statue in Nuuk I, the creator of this work, hereby release it into the public domain. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (1536x2048, 501 KB) Hans Egedes statue in Nuuk I, the creator of this work, hereby release it into the public domain. ... January 31 is the 31st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Events The League of Augsburg is founded. ... Image:Harstad i norge. ... In norwegian: Nord-Norge meaning Northern Norway. ... November 5 is the 309th day of the year (310th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 56 days remaining. ... 1758 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... Falster is a Danish island. ... The Lutheran movement is a group of denominations of Protestant Christianity by the original definition. ... A missionary is a propagator of religion, often an evangelist or other representative of a religious community who works among those outside of that community. ... Reine, Lofoten, seen from top of Reinebringen (June, 2003). ... The term Viking commonly denotes the ship-borne explorers, traders, and warriors of the Norsemen who originated in Scandinavia and raided the coasts of the British Isles, France and other parts of Europe from the late 8th century to the 11th century. ... Frederick IV Frederick IV (October 11, 1671 - October 12, 1730) king of Denmark and Norway from 1699. ...

Egede landed on the west coast of Greenland on July 3. He was sent to seek the old Viking colony on Greenland but he found no survivors. The last communication with that colony had been over 300 years earlier. He did, however, find the Inuit and started a mission among them. He studied the Inuit language and translated Christian texts into it. This required some imagination as, for instance, the Inuit had no bread nor any idea of it. So the words of the Lord's Prayer were translated by Egede as the equivalent of "Give us this day our daily harbor seal". July 3 is the 184th day of the year (185th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 181 days remaining. ... For other uses, see Inuit (disambiguation). ... The language of the Inuit people is traditionally spoken across the North American Arctic and to some extent in the subarctic in Labrador. ... The Lords Prayer (Greek Η Κυριακή Προσευχή) (Latin Oratio Dominica), sometimes also known amongst English speakers as the Pater Imon, the Pater Noster or the Our Father, is probably the best-known prayer in Christianity. ... Binomial name bobbi Linnaeus,, 1758 Common or Harbour Seals (Phoca vitulina) are true seals of the Northern Hemisphere. ...

Egede founded Godthåb (now Nuuk), which later became the capital of Greenland. In 1724, he baptised the first children. The new king, Christian VI of Denmark, recalled all Europeans from Greenland in 1730. Egede remained, however, encouraged by his wife Gertrud. Egede's book Det gamle Grønlands nye Perlustration, (The old Greenland's new Perlustration, or an accurate description of those old Nordic Colonies in Greenland) appeared in 1729 and was translated into several languages. Location of the Nuuk municipality in Greenland Nuuk (The Cape) (Danish: GodthÃ¥b, which translates to Good Hope in English) is the capital and largest city of the self-governing Danish territory of Greenland. ... Chistian VI (1699-1746) king of Denmark and Norway from 1730. ...

In 1733, the Herrnhut missionaries of Nicolaus Ludwig Zinzendorf were allowed to establish New Herrnhut, south of Nuuk. In 1734, a smallpox epidemic broke out which spread through the Inuit and claimed Gertrud Egede in 1735. Hans Egede left his son Paul in Greenland and traveled on 9 August 1736 with its daughters and his son Niels to Copenhagen. In 1741, he was named bishop of Greenland. He established a catechism for use in Greenland in 1747. Herrnhut (Sorbian: Ochranow) is a municipality in the district of Löbau-Zittau, in the state of Saxony, Germany. ... Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf, Count of Zinzendorf and Pottendorf, (May 26, 1700 – May 9, 1760), German religious and social reformer, was born at Dresden. ... Smallpox (also known by the Latin names Variola or Variola vera) was a highly contagious viral disease unique to humans. ... August 9 is the 221st day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (222nd in leap years), with 144 days remaining. ... Events January 26 - Stanislaus I of Poland abdicates his throne. ... Copenhagen (IPA: , rhyming with pagan (the way the Danes themselves pronounce the name of the capital in English), or , with a as in spa; Danish   IPA: ) is the capital of Denmark and the countrys largest city (metropolitan population 1,211,542 (2006)), at present made up of 16 municipalities. ...

Egede became a national saint of Greenland and the town of Egedesminde commemorates him. It was established by Niels Egede, Hans's second and surviving son, in 1759 on the Eqalussuit peninsula but moved to the island of Aasiaat in 1763, which had been the site of a pre-Viking Inuit settlement. Location of the Aasiaat municipality in Greenland (shown in red). ... Location of the Aasiaat municipality in Greenland (shown in red). ...

References

This article incorporates material translated from the Danish and German articles on Hans Egede.

External links

• Entry on Hans Egede in online Norwegian history book (in Norwegian)
• Entry on Hans Egede from the The James Ford Bell Library at University of Minnesota, "Hans Egede, The Apostle of Greenland"
• The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica