Religion of the NRF

[roseroyal]

Are they Catholic? I see news reports that state they went to Mass, but I thought they were Lutheran.

[Sonjapearl]

Norwegian Royals are Lutheran, not Catholic. I don't think being Lutheran means not having any church services.

[roseroyal]

Oh sorry... I thought only Catholics called their services Mass.

[Sonjapearl]

Originally Posted by roseroyal

Oh sorry... I thought only Catholics called their services Mass.

I think so too, but I also think I misunderstood your question.

[Maura724]

I saw that, too - I think the photos were just incorrectly captioned, or the captions were poorly translated. The NRF are Lutherans, and Lutherans don't call services masses.

[Her_Majesty]

well yes, I was confused about that too.
Several captions said the Royals were attending the "mass"; which is not correct...
...but actually many people nowadays say "mass" when they mean church services... no matter if they talk about catholic or protestant church services.
Maybe that's also why the caption says "mass". At Norwegian pages you don't find that expression. They only say "church service" - which is correct.

[acupoftea]

I'm not quite sure about the situation in the Lutheran Church of Norway (don't know if that's the right name) but in Finland the Lutheran church service has been called "mass" for a few years. Might be that way in Norway as well.
At the beginning it sounded a bit odd to me because I linked the word "mass" with the Catholic Church (no offence here on my part) but now I'm used to it.

[Meraude]

The Norwegian royal family is Lutheran, as been mentioned above. In the Lutheran churches there are two different kinds of religious services, one is (in Norwegian) gudsteneste, the more common church service without communion/nattverd, the other is messe when there is a communion/nattverd.

[CyrilVladisla]

Princess Maud became the wife of King Haakon VII.
She was Anglican.
Did she have to change her religion when she married her cousin Prince Carl of Denmark?

[Ish]

Originally Posted by CyrilVladisla

Princess Maud became the wife of King Haakon VII.
She was Anglican.
Did she have to change her religion when she married her cousin Prince Carl of Denmark?

I'm not sure of the proper answer for this.

However, Wikipedia lists her religion as Anglican, so I'm inclined to believe she didn't convert.

It's my understanding that most Protestant/Anglican monarchies don't require spouses to convert to Anglicanism unless they come from a non-Protestant/Anglican religion, provided that they consent to raise their children in the religion of the realm. Even with other religions, it's not necessarily a requirement that they convert provided there are no laws saying otherwise and the children are raised in the "right" religion.

If Maud had been marrying a Catholic or Orthodox monarch she would have probably had to convert, or if she herself had been Catholic or Orthodox, she would probably have had to convert to marry Haakon/Carl.

[Tatiana Maria]

Originally Posted by CyrilVladisla

Princess Maud became the wife of King Haakon VII.
She was Anglican.
Did she have to change her religion when she married her cousin Prince Carl of Denmark?

She apparently attended Anglican services as Queen of Norway.
St Edmund's Church - A Great Church in a Small Building

St Edmund’s Church
The church in Møllergt.30 was built by the English congregation in Kristiania in 1884 in a simple neo-gothic style and has since then been the main church of the Anglican Chaplaincy in Norway.
It was Queen Maud’s favourite church because she knew the liturgy and hymns from England before she became Norway’s first modern Queen in 1905.
In the church you can see a memorial-plate of her and her father, King Edward VII. The English monarch’s coat of arms, to be found above the baptismal font on the wall, is together with several other gifts from the English Royal Family.

[Mbruno]

Originally Posted by Sonjapearl

Norwegian Royals are Lutheran, not Catholic. I don't think being Lutheran means not having any church services.

Sometimes, in "high" Anglican or Lutheran churches, a service which includes the celebration of the eucharist is also referred to as a "mass", although the liturgy is not quite like the Roman Catholic mass.

[Iain]

Converting to another religion should be done out of conviction and not because of marriage. The Dutch Royals have the right idea, they don't require anyone to change faith when they marry into the family.

[Mbruno]

Originally Posted by Iain

Converting to another religion should be done out of conviction and not because of marriage. The Dutch Royals have the right idea, they don't require anyone to change faith when they marry into the family.

Contrary to widespread belief, Catholic royal families don't always require a consort to convert either. When Princess Astrid of Sweden married Prince Léopold of Belgium, she felt she needed to convert because Belgium was a "Catholic country" (although, in fact, Belgium has no state religion). However, the priest she consulted told her not to do so unless she truly believed in the Catholic faith. She did convert eventually, but only many years later and, allegedly, out of true conviction.