Ljosavatn and the Church of Thorgeir
Ljosavatn and the Church of Thorgeir
This modern little church was built in the year 2000 to commemorate 1000 years of Christianity in Iceland.
Visitors are made especially welcome and can sit down and enjoy the church while listening to beautiful and relaxing music.
Most surprising is the altarpiece, which is a large window revealing a beautiful view. The church is located by the farm Ljosavatn just south of road 1, west of Godafoss waterfall.
The church is named after tenth-century chieftain, and law speaker Þorgeir was responsible for Iceland adopting Christianity in the year 1000.
When the Christian community threatened to secede from the Althing national assembly, Þorgeir was given the task of finding a peaceful solution.
He is quoted as saying "if we under the law then we also under the peace" and though he was a pagan, he took the decision that all Icelanders should become Christian.
The legend says that Þorgeir took the wooden images of his pagan gods and threw them into the waterfall, which then became known as Godafoss (the fall of the gods).