The Cult of St. Olaf in the Latin and Greek Churches between the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries

This study aims to investigate how the cult of St. Olaf, the most famous Nordic saint, was instrumentalized after the Great Schism. We can observe a theological tendency of the papacy to centralize and standardize the Latin rite in Scandinavia by eliminating all Orthodox influences within the Scandinavian churches. This measure would ensure the Catholicization of the cult of St. Olaf by passing over in silence any Eastern ecclesiastical connection. In what follows, we will see that as St. Olaf was increasingly assimilated by the Latin church, the Byzantines in Constantinople reduced his spiritual power within the imperial political ideology.