Svalbard is one of the most extraordinary places on earth.
It sits more than 900 kilometres north of Norway, in the icy waters of the Arctic and Atlantic oceans.
More than half the archipelago is covered by glaciers. In summer, it experiences months of continuous 24-hour daylight and in winter, continuous 24-hour of total darkness.
The average daily mean summer temperature is 4 to 7 °C.
A little over 2,000 people live on the archipelago and most belong to the Church of Norway, however there are only a handful of Catholics on the island.
There is no dedicated Catholic Church on the island.
It was in order to bring the Eucharist to Catholics in the Arctic that Bishop Johannes Olav Smit travelled to Svalbard in 1926.
He celebrated the first Mass in Longyearbyen on 4 August 1926. He also celebrated a Pontifical Mass in Barentsburg on 8 August 1926 and administered Confirmation.
While no permanent mission was ever established on the island, in the past century, it was been served by priests from Tromsø who have also travelled to the Polish research station in Hornsund to celebrate Mass for Catholics there.
To celebrate this century of service, Bishop Erik Varden OCSO of Trondheim and Apostolic Administrator of Tromsø celebrated a solemn Mass in Longyearbyen on Sunday, 30 August.
Among those accompanying him were Fr. Andrzej Kosciukiewicz, parish priest of Our Lady’s Church in Tromsø, Fr. Rafal Ockojski, local delegate of the Territorial Prelature of Tromsø, and representatives of Caritas and the Catholic community in Tromsø.
In his homily, he compared the Arctic wilderness with the desert sought out by the first Christian monks. They withdrew into solitude not because they despised humanity, he said, but in order to free themselves from illusions and encounter themselves truthfully before God.
"To encounter oneself means to stand face to face with one’s own vulnerability," he said. "If we turn off the iPhone, Svalbard teaches us much that is essential.
"If we have eyes that see, we realise how small we are, both in time and space. If we have ears that hear, this insight has an echo of eternity."
Bishop Varden was born into a non-practising Lutheran family in South Norway and converted to Catholicism in 1993. He entered the Mount St Bernard Abbey, a Trappist monastery near Coalville in Leicestershire, England, in 2002.
He became Superior Administrator of the abbey in 2013 and in 2015, became Abbot. In 2019, he became the prelate of the Territorial Prelature of Trondheim. In 2026, he came to large public attention after being asked to preach at a week-long Lenten spiritual retreat for Pope Leo XIV and the Roman Curia.
Concluding his homily at the centenary celebration, Bishop Varden looked to the mission of the future in the remote territory.
"In gratitude for the grace God has poured out on Svalbard through a hundred years, we will faithfully take responsibility for that grace," he said.
"We are called to knock on the door of every frozen hut, whether it stands out on the wilderness or wherever we ourselves belong."
