GREENLAND. – It is the largest island (2,175,000 sq. km) on earth. The name (Grönland = “green land”) was given to it by the Norsemen who were the first to settle there in the 10th century. Only a little more than 300,000 sq. km along the coasts are free from the immense and powerful ice sheet that covers the entire island and conceals its relief.
On the less inhospitable and colder west coast live 20,013 inhabitants; only 1,371 on the east coast, all of them indigenous (Eskimos), except for 569 Europeans. None of the tiny inhabited centres reaches 1,000 inhabitants; the capital Godthåb (west coast) has 744. The main occupations are fishing, hunting (whales, seals, bears) and rearing (reindeer, sheep, Arctic foxes). Cryolite is extracted at Ivigtut and coal at Arsak. Greenland is a Danish colony, over which American occupation has continued since May 1940.
CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS HISTORY. – Discovered around the year 1000 by Erik the Red. A few years later Christianity was introduced from Norway and the bishopric of Greenland (1124) was established, with its seat at Gardar, near present-day Julianehab. Initially dependent on the archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen, then on that of Lund, in the mid-12th century the diocese was placed under the jurisdiction of the archbishop of Nidaros (Trondheim). In the 13th century Gardar had 16 churches and 2 monasteries; in 1926 the ruins of the cathedral of St Nicholas, built in 1150 by Bishop Arnold, were excavated. In 1261 King Haakon Haakonsson of Norway proclaimed his sovereignty over Greenland, but after the great plague of 1348, which raged throughout Europe, communications between Greenland and Norway became increasingly rare. At the same time, the Scandinavian settlers were decimated by continuous struggles with the pagan Eskimos, who destroyed almost all the churches; repopulation was no longer possible.
Of Greenland, an inhospitable land, no one wanted to hear any more, nor did the bishops appointed by the popes intend to reside there. Around 1520 the energetic archbishop of Nidaros, Erik Valkendorf, wished to send an expedition to Greenland to reclaim it for civilisation and the Church, but, having fallen into disfavour with King Christian II, his plan could not be carried out. Only in 1721 did this Arctic land re-enter the civilised world thanks to the efforts of the Norwegian Protestant pastor Hans Egede, who led an expedition to the west coast of Greenland. In 1776 Christian VII of Denmark declared trade with Greenland a state monopoly. After the Treaty of Kiel (1814), which resulted in Norway’s separation from Denmark, Greenland remained under Danish sovereignty, but at the end of the First World War a dispute arose between Copenhagen and Oslo over the sovereignty of East Greenland. This disagreement was resolved in 1933 by the Permanent Court of International Justice, which awarded sovereignty over East Greenland to Denmark.
Bruni, E. Beauvois, La chrétienté du Groenland au moyen âge, in Revue de questions historiques, 71 (1902), pp. 538-582; J. Richter, Evangelische Missionsgeschichte, Leipzig 1927, pp. 266-261; L. Preuss, The dispute between Denmark and Norway over the Sovereignty of East Greenland, in The American Journal of International Law, 26 (1932), pp. 469-587; E. Wolgast, Die Grönlandfrage, in Zeitschrift für öffentliches Recht, 12 (1932), pp. 329-385; K. Berlin, Les droits du Danemark sur le Groenland, Paris-Copenhagen 1933.