![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.vaticannews.va\/content\/dam\/vaticannews\/multimedia\/2026\/gennaio\/23\/19.jpg\/_jcr_content\/renditions\/cq5dam.thumbnail.cropped.750.422.jpeg\" "\\"The")
<\/p>\nAmid mounting geopolitical tensions, Fr. Toma\u017e Majcen, the Slovene Franciscan priest who leads the small Catholic community on the Arctic island, tells Vatican News that Greenlanders \u201cwant to be seen as a people with their own story, language, culture, and faith.\u201d<\/p>\n
By Valerio Palombaro<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to choose [Greenland\u2019s] future ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
A quiet determination runs through the icy streets of Nuuk, which, with its 20,000 inhabitants, is Greenland\u2019s main city.<\/p>\n
It is Father Toma\u017e Majcen, a Slovene Franciscan friar, who is describing the atmosphere on the Artic island to Vatican Media.\u00a0For about two and a half years, he has served as parish priest of Christ the King Church in Nuuk\u2014the only Latin Catholic parish across Greenland\u2019s more than two million square kilometers of land and ice.<\/p>\n
\n Listen to an extract from our interview with Fr Majcen\n <\/p>\n
A people with a history and a culture <\/p>\n
An island with just 56,000 inhabitants has now become a focal point of global geopolitical competition over rare earths and energy resources.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe atmosphere in Nuuk right now is quiet on the surface, but inside there is tension\u201d, Father Majcen says.<\/p>\n
Since accepting the invitation in the summer of 2023 from the Bishop of Copenhagen to take pastoral care of the Catholic community on the Arctic island, he has come to know its people well. \u201cPeople in Greenland are not loud. They watch, listen and think before they speak. Lately, \u2026 talk about politics happens more often in shops and coffee tables.\u201d<\/p>\n
Many people, the Slovene priest explains, feel \u201churt\u201d rather than angry when they hear foreign politicians speak of Greenland \u201cas power or property\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt touches their pride,\u201d he said. \u201cThey want to be seen as a people with their own story, language, culture and faith. There is no fear, but people know that strong voices far away are talking about Greenland without really understanding it.\u201d<\/p>\n
This, Fr Majcen says, brings both a sense of \u201cweakness\u201d and of \u201ctogetherness\u201d.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n The outside of Fr Majcen’s church\n <\/p>\n
A small but vibrant Catholic community <\/p>\n
That sense of togetherness is nourished and grounded within faith communities. About 90 percent of Greenlanders belong to the Evangelical Lutheran Church, which is deeply rooted in the people\u2019s history and identity. \u201cCatholics are only a very small minority\u2014here in Nuuk there are about 500 Catholics, and across all of Greenland around 800\u2014coming from different nations, languages, and backgrounds.\u201d Many come from the Philippines and Europe. \u201cOur parish is small, but very much alive.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Church in Greenland, though tiny in number, plays an important role, according to Nuuk\u2019s parish priest, in reminding people that \u201cland is never just land. It is always bound to people, memories, ancestors, and future generations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Every Sunday, prayers are said in Lutheran churches for the Kingdom of Denmark and for Greenland\u2019s autonomous government. The initiative, organised by Paneeraq Siegstad Munk, Bishop of Greenland for the Evangelical Lutheran Church, takes place in an unprecedented geopolitical context.<\/p>\n
\u201cChurches,\u201d Father Majcen insists, \u201coffer something quiet but powerful: prayer, presence, listening, and moral grounding. When we speak of creation as a gift of God and of human dignity, we are already saying something very strong against reducing Greenland to a strategic object. Greenland must not become a chessboard for global interests.\u201d<\/p>\n
A question of dignity <\/p>\n
Current events may strengthen Greenlanders\u2019 desire for independence. \u201cPeople are realistic,\u201d the Slovene priest observes. \u201cThey know that independence is not just a dream, but also a great responsibility. Economic issues, education, healthcare\u2014all of this matters.\u201d<\/p>\n
What is very clear, in any case, is that Greenlanders do not want to \u201ctrade\u201d one form of dependence for another. \u201cThe idea of being absorbed or dominated by another power is widely rejected,\u201d he says. \u201cFor many, independence is a matter of dignity, cultural survival, and self-respect.\u201d<\/p>\n
Father Majcen also describes reactions to the arrival of a small group of European and NATO soldiers. \u201cAny military presence raises questions,\u201d he says, \u201cbut this is generally perceived differently from aggressive foreign interest. Most people understand it within the framework of cooperation and shared responsibility for security in the Arctic region. There is no enthusiasm for militarization, but there is awareness that the Arctic has become strategically important.\u201d<\/p>\n
Peace among the ice <\/p>\n
All of this inevitably leads back to climate change. \u201cHere,\u201d says the parish priest of Nuuk, \u201cit is not a theory, but something you can see with your own eyes. The structure of the ice is changing, the seasons are changing, and hunters speak of how nature no longer behaves as it once did.\u201d<\/p>\n
Life among the ice strips away what is superfluous. \u201cAs a priest, I often feel that this land itself teaches prayer. The silence, the vastness, the fragility\u2014all of this invites humility. Preserving Greenland\u2019s environment must begin with respect: respect for nature, for indigenous knowledge, and for future generations.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe must recover the idea that Creation is not ours to exploit, but to care for,\u201d he concludes. \u201cPolitically and economically, decisions must be slow, thoughtful, and rooted in long-term responsibility, not short-term gain. Because once this land is damaged, it cannot easily be restored.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Amid mounting geopolitical tensions, Fr. Toma\u017e Majcen, the Slovene Franciscan priest who leads the small Catholic community on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18915,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[913,26,71,57,5702,1158],"class_list":{"0":"post-18914","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-greenland","8":"tag-climate-change","9":"tag-denmark","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-greenland","12":"tag-interview","13":"tag-politics"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18914\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}