Mount Zion Ryan

Just Call me Raphael Michaelsson
Like a zombie seeking brains, like a moth to a flame, like a kid to dirt, I am drawn to Iceland. What the heck is in Iceland? Not much.
Only 290k people in a space the size of Kentucky.
Cool to cold weather.
Amazing landscapes.
Sigur Ros.

I don’t really know why I am drawn to Iceland. Let me speculate.

• Vikings. I love Vikings. I did my biggest term paper in college on the three avenues of Viking expansion and how they interacted with the peoples they encountered.
• Cold. Average August temp. in Reykjavik is High 55 and Low 46. January is fairly mild considering the proximity to the Artic circle and only four hours of sunlight. High 35, Low 27.
• Have you seen the landscape.
• Icelandic is still pure enough that you can read the mediaeval Eddas and Sagas.
• Seriously, take a look at the landscape
• Did I mention the population? Reykjavik has about 185k. For this small town guy that sounds awesome.

Now, to connect Iceland and Orthodoxy is not as large a leap as you may think. here are a couple of connections:
By percentage here’s how Orthodoxy is represented in Iceland:
Serbian Orthodox church 157 0.05%
Parish of St. Nicholas of the Russian Orthodox Church 113 0.04%
That means that .9% or the population of Iceland is Orthodox.
May more come back to the first Icelandic religion! See this.
I googled my heart out, but really couldn’t come up with anything on these two churches. Here is a picture that may be the Russian Parish. I have doubts.

Here are some cool pics. As they may be copyrighted, I justed posted links.

• Blue Lagoon and Power Plant
• A collection of Iceland Photos
• matt’s Iceland Photos
• Iceland Photos by Jeff Maion.

More to come…

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