St Olaf of Norway

St Olaf Haraldsson was born around 995 and was baptized as a young man. Returning to Norway, he became king in 1015 and spent his reign planting the Christian faith among a fiercely pagan people. He built churches, brought bishops and clergy, and gave the Church its first order in Norway. The pagan chieftains rose against him with the help of foreign kings, and in 1028 he was driven into exile. He fled to Kievan Rus', to Novgorod and the court of Prince Yaroslav the Wise, whose wife Ingigerd was his kinswoman by marriage. In 1030 he returned to win back his kingdom and fell at the Battle of Stiklestad on 29 July. A year later his body was found incorrupt, and miracles soon made his grave a place of pilgrimage. He has been honored ever since as Norway's patron and "Eternal King". Orthodox Christians venerate him as a passion-bearer of the undivided Church, and his memory was even kept in the Varangian chapel at Constantinople.

St Olaf is a Western pre-schism saint venerated in the Orthodox Church mainly through Russian usage (pravoslavie.ru lists him for 29 July/11 August as a passion-bearer) and the Orthodox in Scandinavia. He is not prominent in Greek calendars. Many of his folk patronages, such as slayer of trolls and giver of fertility, come from Norwegian folklore and are left out here. Lutheran Norway still keeps his day as Olsok.