Religion

Danish Canadians mainly have had three Lutheran churches – the Danish Evangelical Lutheran Church (DELC), the United Danish Evangelical Lutheran Church (UDELC), and the Dansk kirke i udlandet (Danish Church Abroad, DKU). The DELC was founded in 1872 in the United States, inspired by the Danish minister and hymnodist N.F.S. Grundtvig and his movement glade kristendom (Happy Christianity), based on “the living word.” He was opposed to both pietism and the official church, and his followers came to be known as “Happy Danes.” The church set up folk high schools on the Grundtvigian model and stressed preservation of Danish culture and language and establishment of Danish immigrant colonies.

Some DELC members felt that their church was neglecting missionary work and, led by a group of conservative pastors, in 1896 formed the UDELC, modelled on the Inner Mission, a fundamentalist and revivalist group in Denmark. This church emphasized literal interpretation of the Bible, personal conversion, and universal missionary work; it was not particularly concerned with Danishness.

UDELC pastors in Canada often moved among Danish settlements. The nomadic experience of the Reverend Niels Damskov, mentioned above, is typical. Born in 1863, he immigrated to the United States with his family in 1890, was ordained in 1895, served parishes in Iowa, North Dakota, and Montana, and from 1919 to 1925 ministered in Winnipeg and to rural Danish congregations. During the early 1930s he went monthly from Ostenfeld to Pass Lake, conducting a youth meeting there on Friday evening, and a service on Sunday. He lived alternately with three different families. Usually he held a meeting for Danes in Port Arthur on Sunday nights before the night train left for Winnipeg. He served from 1934 to 1937 in Redvers and then moved back to Ostenfeld, whence he also visited the small Danish congregation in Swan River, Manitoba, over 500 kilometres away, as well as other places. He was proclaimed Ridder af Dannebrog (Knight of the Dannebrog) in 1937 for his work.

Canada’s first Danish congregation was the one in New Denmark. Because settlers could not support the Lutheran pastor, Niels Mikkelsen Hansen, sent from Denmark in 1875, the local Anglican priest offered help. Though eventually ordained an Anglican priest, Hansen was allowed for twenty years to preach in Danish and to use the Lutheran catechism. In June 1884 St Ansgar’s Church was dedicated, possibly the only Anglican church in the world named after Denmark’s patron saint.

It was not until 1905 that a UDELC congregation was formed in New Denmark. St Peter’s Lutheran Church was built in 1917, across the road from St Ansgar’s. After years of friction, the two denominations now get along well. Danish-language sermons disappeared from the Anglican church with the retirement of its last Danish priest in 1911 and from the Lutheran church in the late 1960s. However, both congregations still sing a Danish hymn in their services. In most rural churches in Canada use of Danish ceased by the 1950s.

Most urban churches established early in the century in Canada were formed by the UDELC. In the prairies, congregations formed in Winnipeg (1910) and Calgary (1913) built churches between the world wars, when the second wave of immigrants arrived. However, after World War II the Danish element became less important, and today only the Calgary congregation survives, with most of its members being non-Danish. Similarly, UDELC churches in Toronto (founded 1926) and Montreal (1927) had Danish services until the 1960s, after which both lost their Danish membership and character. There are or have been Danish congregations also in London and Waterloo, Ontario, and in Saskatoon.

In the early 1960s the DELC and UDELC in Canada, together with other Scandinavian and German Lutheran churches (except the Missouri Synod), amalgamated with the American Lutheran Church, Canada District. This new body became the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada in 1967.

In 1919 a group of Danish men living in Berlin, Germany, most of whom were married to German women, set up the Danish Church Abroad (DKU) – an Inner Mission–type church that branched out into nations where Danes had settled. By 1939 it had become quite Grundtvigian, and today it is associated with the state church, the Dansk Folkekirke (Danish National Church, or DF), though privately funded. A DKU church was founded in Edmonton in 1930, and one in Vancouver in 1935. During the war these churches were cut off from Denmark, Danish-trained pastors were brought in from the United States or other parts of Canada, and members seriously debated whether or not the churches should remain Danish. Post-war immigrants, however, expanded membership, and congregations were formed in Toronto and Grimsby, Ontario (both 1957), and in Calgary (1964). From the 1960s the Vancouver church had an annex in Surrey called Granly (Spruce Shelter), which in 1984 became independent.

DKU pastors are still trained in Denmark and serve regular DF congregations there, but when sent abroad they are paid by the DKU and their host congregations. Currently they serve in Canada for five years, plus three more years if the congregation so desires. DKU churches still hold services in Danish on alternate Sundays.

Seven churches in Canada were built in the Danish Gothic style typical of village churches in Denmark – stone, painted white, with red-tiled roofs. Many Danish-Canadian churches have a traditional kirkeskib, or model votive ship, hanging from the rafters over the nave.