Bishop Erlend
Bishop Erlend was the most powerful of all the medieval bishops of the Faroe Islands.
Rector Erlend from Bergen arrived in the Faroe Islands in 1268 to take up the position of bishop. He managed to acquire great wealth for the church and started building a cathedral at the episcopal centre of Kirkjubø in the Faroes. However, this building project was very expensive and Erlend began to impose high taxes on his parishioners to pay for the work. This made him very unpopular, and a rebellion broke out. Forced to flee, he returned to Norway in 1305, where he died three years later.
The ruins of Bishop Erlend’s cathedral still stand in Kirkjubø, and it is a model of this church that the statue of Erlend on the West Front holds in his right hand.
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Attribute
A model church
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The sculpture
Bishop Erlend was modelled by Odd Hilt and carved by Oscar Lynum in 1944.
