The PassÃÂusálmar or Passion Hymns are a collection of 50 poetic texts written by the Icelandic minister and poet, HallgrÃÂmur Pétursson. The texts explore the Passion narrative, as traditionally presented, from the point where Jesus enters the Garden of Gethsemane to his death and burial.
HallgrÃÂmur began composing the work in 1656, while serving as pastor of Saurbær in Hvalfjörður. It took him three years to complete, the final poem being written in May 1659; the first edition was published seven years later, in 1666. By the end of the century they had become so popular in Iceland that five editions had been published. Since that time, they have been reprinted more than 75 times, a unique achievement in Icelandic literature. The poems were translated into many other languages, including Latin, English, Chinese and Danish.
The first English edition was published in 1913. In the 1950s a new translation was made by Arthur Charles Gook. This new translation received the imprimatur of the Bishop of Iceland, Sigurbjörn Einarsson, and is published by HallgrÃÂmskirkja. In addition, a selection of texts were translated by Anglican Bishop Charles Venn Pilcher and published in a pamphlet entitled "Thirty-One Meditations on Christ's Passion"; this translation, although incomplete, is regarded as more faithful to HallgrÃÂmur's Lutheran theology.
The PassÃÂusálmar quickly became an important part of Icelandic religious expression, being sung or read during Lent in every Icelandic home; today, they are broadcast on the radio during that time of year. They have been set to music by many composers of Icelandic church music, including ÃÂorkell Sigurbjörnsson and Jón Hlöðver ÃÂskelsson, but use outside Iceland is rare.
Since 1943, state broadcaster RÃÂV has annually broadcast the hymns during Lent, a tradition initiated at the urging of Sigurbjörn Einarsson. For each of the fifty days leading up to Easter, an Icelander reads one verse of the hymns. In 2012, Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center attempted and failed to stop this practice, arguing that their many negative references to Jews reinforced antisemitic hatred. However, RÃÂV director Páll Magnússon rejected the request, telling Cooper to "bear in mind that the hymns are written 350 years ago and they describe the poet's feelings about events that supposedly took place around 2000 years ago." Vilhjálmur ÃÂrn Vilhjálmsson has commented that the episode revealed that "no Icelandic researcher on Pétursson's poetry had ever considered whether the Passiusalmar were perhaps not a uniquely Icelandic phenomenon," but representative of European antisemitism prevalent at the time of their writing.
PassÃÂulykill, text of the PassÃÂusálmar with index by Adalsteinn Eythorsson