“We want to choose [Greenland’s] future ourselves.” A quiet determination runs through the icy streets of Nuuk, which, with its 20,000 inhabitants, is Greenland’s main city. It is Father Tomaž Majcen, a Slovene Franciscan friar, who is describing the atmosphere on the Artic island to Vatican Media. For about two and a half years, he has served as parish priest of Christ the King Church in Nuuk—the only Latin Catholic parish across Greenland’s more than two million square kilometers of land and ice.
An island with just 56,000 inhabitants has now become a focal point of global geopolitical competition over rare earths and energy resources. “The atmosphere in Nuuk right now is quiet on the surface, but inside there is tension”, Father Majcen says.
Since accepting the invitation in the summer of 2023 from the Bishop of Copenhagen to take pastoral care of the Catholic community on the Arctic island, he has come to know its people well. “People in Greenland are not loud. They watch, listen and think before they speak. Lately, … talk about politics happens more often in shops and coffee tables.”
Many people, the Slovene priest explains, feel “hurt” rather than angry when they hear foreign politicians speak of Greenland “as power or property”. “It touches their pride,” he said. “They want to be seen as a people with their own story, language, culture and faith. There is no fear, but people know that strong voices far away are talking about Greenland without really understanding it.” This, Fr Majcen says, brings both a sense of “weakness” and of “togetherness.”
