How to Be a Pilgrim: Guidebooks on the Norwegian St. Olav Ways and the Heritagization of Religion

Abstract

The Norwegian St. Olav Ways are currently the largest Northern European project re-institutionalizing pilgrimage as cultural heritage, providing a new framework for vernacular religious practices to a wide audience. In this article we approach the current pilgrimage revival in Northern Europe as part of a trend toward a heritagization of religion that allows new religious self-understandings to emerge. We analyze pilgrim guidebooks to the St. Olav Ways with regard to their narrative scripts, detailing how they can create expectations, inform the pilgrims’ conduct, and direct their attention toward a history that translates into a heritage. Based on a corpus of published pilgrim journals and diaries, we argue that the guidebooks instruct a process of interpretive drift, which influence the pilgrims toward embracing and embodying a new role within the religious field. The guidebooks invite the pilgrims to take on the role of heirs to a medieval European tradition.

On the concept of the regional religious brand: The veneration and pilgrimage of Saint John Vladimir and new pathways for religious tourism

“…In the area of pilgrimage studies, since the turn of the century, a proliferation of the number of people visiting old religious shrines and the construction of new sites (Reader, 2007) marked a revival of traditional pilgrimage routes, the creation of new ones and the invention of new rituals (Eade, 2020), a trend also observed in recent pilgrimage travelogues in different regions, such as in Great Britain (Bowman, 2020; Brabbs, 2017; Mayhew‐Smith & Haywards, 2020; Palmer & Palmer, 2000; Wells, 2016) and Scandinavia. The revival of medieval pilgrimage to St Olaf's relic at Nidaros Cathedral in the Norwegian city of Trondheim (Mikaelsson, 2019), which became the destination of nine pilgrimage routes totalling circa 3000 km through breath‐taking sceneries alternating villages with rich cultural heritage (Johannsen & Ohrvik, 2020), certainly fits the definition of a regional religious brand. After Dirk Johanssen and Ane Ohrvik, this endeavour constitutes “the largest Northern European project reinstitutionalizing pilgrimage as cultural heritage, providing a new framework for vernacular religious practices to a wide audience” (Johannsen & Ohrvik, 2020, 508).…”

“…The revival of medieval pilgrimage to St Olaf's relic at Nidaros Cathedral in the Norwegian city of Trondheim (Mikaelsson, 2019), which became the destination of nine pilgrimage routes totalling circa 3000 km through breath‐taking sceneries alternating villages with rich cultural heritage (Johannsen & Ohrvik, 2020), certainly fits the definition of a regional religious brand. After Dirk Johanssen and Ane Ohrvik, this endeavour constitutes “the largest Northern European project reinstitutionalizing pilgrimage as cultural heritage, providing a new framework for vernacular religious practices to a wide audience” (Johannsen & Ohrvik, 2020, 508).…”

“…Sepp & Remmel, 2020). The matter relates to the political economy of travel, where interplays between transnational, national and regional processes have been evident (Coleman & Eade, 2004, 17), as was the case of the revived pilgrimage of St Olaf in Trondheim, Norway (Johannsen & Ohrvik, 2020; Mikaelsson, 2019). Similar developments were also studied in the pilgrimage to the Durham cathedral, where the cathedral and the Durham region were connected in the context of the Northern Saints' Trails thanks to a partnership between the Durham cathedral and the local secular authorities (Miles‐Watson, 2022).…”

“…In the realm of pilgrimage studies, researchers have been delving into the intricate ways through which recently established pilgrimage routes in regions of Britain (Coleman, 2019; Miles‐Watson, 2022) and Scandinavia (Gemzöe, 2020; Jenkins, 2019; Johannsen & Ohrvik, 2020; Mikaelsson, 2019; Vuola, 2020) are imbued with distinctive and newly regionally or nationally crafted identities, thereby attempting to construct regional religious brands promoted in small or larger regions (cf. Coleman & Eade, 2004).…”

“…Scholars are avidly exploring how the inherent concepts of the Camino, with its spiritual significance and cultural richness, are harnessed to mould the character of these contemporary pilgrimages (Bowman et al, 2020; Bowman & Sepp, 2019). It should be noted, however, that these newer routes are not mere replicas but rather amalgamations of their own unique historical, cultural, and geographical elements, intricately interwoven to construct a narrative and pilgrimage practices that resonate deeply within the respective regions, as the case of the Nidaros Cathedral and the Fjord Pilgrim Route (Mikaelsson, 2019; Mikaelsson & Selberg, 2020; Johannsen & Ohrvik, 2020), and various emerging pilgrimage routes in Sweden (Gemzöe, 2020) and Estonia (Sepp & Remmel, 2020).…”