Completed in 1763, Hólar’s red-sandstone cathedral is the oldest stone church in Iceland and brimming with historical works of art, including a 1674 baptismal font carved from a piece of soapstone that washed in from Greenland on an ice floe.
The extraordinary carved altarpiece was donated by the last Catholic bishop of Hólar, Jón Arason, around 1520. After he and his sons were executed at Skálholt for opposition to the Danish Reformation, his remains were brought to Hólar and entombed in the bell tower. The present church tower was built in 1950 as a memorial.
