More than 500,000 Norwegians attended service on Christmas Eve last year. It is expected that this year there will also be great surge in the churches around the country.
– On Christmas Eve there can be complete chaos outside the churches, because there are so many who want to get into the Christmas services. The churches are often packed. In my local church there are four consecutive services on Christmas Eve, says Church Council leader Kristin Gunleiksrud Raaum to Dagsavisen.
A total of 537,027 people attended church on Christmas Eve last year, according to statistics from Statistics Norway . That’s almost 30,000 fewer than ten years ago.
Gunleiksrud Raaum tells the newspaper that it is expected that well over 500,000 people will attend church on Christmas Eve this year as well, which is far more than on an ordinary Sunday.
On a nationwide basis, 14.4 percent of members of the Norwegian Church went to worship on Christmas Eve 2018, according to figures from Statistics Norway. That’s what ‘ Vårt Land ‘ writes.
Agder and Telemark are the diocese where the largest proportion of members of the Norwegian Church go to worship on Christmas Eve, followed by Stavanger and Bjørgvin. Borg is the diocese with the lowest proportion of members attending church services on Christmas Eve.
The most competition for a seat in the church on Christmas Eve was in Oslo last year, where there were 329 participants on average per Christmas service. In Nord-Hålogaland there were the most available seats in their churches, with only 159 participants on average.
© NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today
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