​Written by  Fr. Dennis O'Neill

Olaf II Haraldsson was born in 995. He ruled as king of Norway from 1015 to 1028 and had a serious role in the bringing of Christianity to his homeland. After he died on July 29, 1030  during the Battle of Stiklestad – fought by those who were opposed to Christianity - his body was laid in a simple wooden coffin and taken by boat to Trondheim. He was buried outside of St. Clement Church in Trondheim, but was brought into the church and enshrined the next year when he was canonized by Bishop Grimkell.

In 1153, Trondheim’s ecclesiastical significance was enhanced by the erection there of the Archepiscopal See of Nidaros. Pope Alexander III confirmed St. Olaf’s canonization in 1164. By this time, Olaf’s coffin had long been enshrined behind the high altar of Nidaros Cathedral. For nearly five centuries, the shrine was of major religious importance to Norway and the other Nordic countries, as well as to other parts of Europe.

​St. Olaf’s shrine opens and closes the Middle Ages as a historic period in Norway. The shrine actually consisted of three shrines, one covering the other, and was by far the most important and valuable object in Norway in the Middle Ages. After the Lutheran reformation in 1536 – 1537, the valuable parts of St. Olaf’s Shrine were dismantled and confiscated by Danish authorities. Since 1568, St. Olaf’s earthly remains have been resting in an unknown grave somewhere in or under Nidaros Cathedral. ​

The only known relic of St. Olaf to remain in Scandinavia to modern times is the Arm Reliquary, given by King Oscar I of Sweden and Norway to St. Olaf Roman Catholic Cathedral in Oslo in 1862. The relic, which is a human calf bone, not an arm bone, had been kept in the Danish National Museum in Copenhagen since the late 17th century. It may have come to Copenhagen among  several St. Olaf relics that King Christian II of Denmark-Norway requested from Nidaros after his coronation in Oslo in the summer  of 1514. The age of this calf bone was scientifically confirmed to date back to the span of St. Olaf’s lifetime after being examined in 2012. It is the left calf bone of a man who was in battle. ​

Our Shrine of All Saints has three relics of St. Olaf, which would have come to mainland Europe some time before or during the Reformation. The first is in a metal shrine designed like a sarcophagus with the image of a king reclining with royal regalia.  It was sealed by Cardinal Thomas-Marie-Joseph Gousset of Reims around 1840. Another was sealed by Auxiliary Bishop Pasquale Giusti of Caserta in 1841 and was kept in the chapel of the Pignatelli di Spinazzola Palace.  The third was sealed by Cardinal Bartolomeo Pacca, the Vatican Secretary of State, in 1835, and comes from Mount Athos.

In 1930, 900 years after St. Olaf’s death, on July 29th St. Olaf’s Day was re-introduced in Noway’s as Olsok (Olav’s Vigil, actually the eve of St. Olav’s Day). The day had been out of  the calendar since Danish-Norwegian ecclesiastical legislation had removed it in 1542, due to the Reformation. In our Shrine of All Saints can be seen a silver spoon struck at Nidaros Cathedral in commemoration of this event. It depicts both the saint and the cathedral. Since its re-establishment in Norway, in 1843, the Roman Catholic Church has also celebrated Olsok as a major feast in the church calendar. ​

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