Olaf II, Haraldsson, King of Norway, Saint

OLAF II, Haraldsson, King of Norway, Saint. - Called Olaf the Strong or Olaf the Holy, b. in 995, d. in 1030. Son of Harald of Norway, he spent his youth as a Viking, both in England and in Normandy: he is found at Rouen in 1013-14.

While King Canute of Denmark, around 1015, was occupied in England and had also summoned to his aid the prince of Norway, Eric, Olaf took the opportunity to return to his homeland, managing to have himself recognized as king, at Nidaros (Trondheim), which he made his capital and where he built a church. Of deeply rooted Christian convictions, he strove for the extirpation of paganism, particularly with laws against superstition, calling many priests and bishops from England; these too passed, under his impulse, into Sweden and Götaland, recognizing the metropolitan supremacy of Bremen.

For ten years of peace he governed and wisely reorganized the Kingdom; but his zeal, perhaps excessive, in the extirpation of paganism and the absolutism of his government alienated the minds of many subjects, among them also powerful chieftains, such as Thor and Herek, taking advantage of which Canute, who claimed sovereignty over Norway, attempted several times to recover it. In the battle of Helge, however (1026), he did not succeed in prevailing; he tried again in 1028 and succeeded in seizing Nidaros, while Olaf fled to Sweden, returning almost immediately, in 1030, to attempt once more the conquest of the kingdom. But in the battle at Stiklestad on 29 July in the year 1030 he met his death.

He was celebrated as the hero of national independence and venerated as a martyr, fallen for zeal in the propagation of the faith.

His cult, begun immediately after his death, and officially recognized by Bishop Grunskel as early as 1031, had a very wide diffusion in the northern regions and his name is inscribed in the Martyrology.

Alberto Ghinato