Hans Egede
Hans Egede (1686-1758) was a missionary Norwegian Lutheran, called the Apostle of Greenland.
He was evangelist on the islands Lofoten when he heard the stories of the colonization of Greenland by the Vikings. In May 1721, he asked to the king of Denmark Frederic IV the permission to leave to research this colony and to establish a mission there, supposing that they either had remained catholic, or had lost the faith. The king approved, in particular to restore Danish sovereignty on the island.
Egede arrived on the west coast on July 3rd. There was more than 300 years that no news of Greenland had come from to Europe and it did not find any survivor in the old colonies. He found on the other hand Inuits and began his missionary activity near them. He studied the Inuit language and translated Christian texts, which required a certain imagination of its share.
He founded Godthåb (today Nuuk), which will become later the capital of Greenland. In 1724, he baptized the first children. The new king, Christian VI of Denmark, pointed out all Europeans of Greenland in 1730. Egede remained, in spite of that, encouraged by his Gertrud wife. The book of Egede ( Det gamle Grønlands nye Perlustration ) appeared in 1729 and was translated in many languages.
In 1733, the missionaries of Nicolaus Ludwig Zinzendorf were authorized to be established in New Herrnhut, in the South of Nuuk. In 1734, an epidemic of small variola burst and was spread among Inuits. Hans Egede left her Paul son then in Greenland and returned to Denmark on August 9th, 1736. Five years later, it was named bishop of Greenland.