Rasmus Jensen

Rasmus Jensen was a Danish Lutheran priest and the first Lutheran cleric in the New World. Little is known about the life of Jensen, not even the parish where he served as pastor.

It is known that he was the chaplain aboard an expedition to the New World commissioned by King Christian IV of Norway in 1619. The expedition was made up of two small Danish ships with 64 sailors: Danes, Norwegians and Swedes or Germans. All these countries were Lutheran at the time. The party arrived in Hudson Bay on July 8, 1619, settling at what is now Churchill, Manitoba. Only three sailors survived and returned to Denmark, leaving no settlement in the New World. Jensen died on 20 February 1620. He was commemorated by North American Lutherans on this day, but with the revision of liturgical books in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, Jensen is no longer commemorated in North America. Following the death of Jensen, the majority of Lutheran missionary activity was concentrated in India and the Virgin Islands, especially Saint Thomas.

References

Phillip Pfatteicher. "Festivals and Commemorations: A Handbook to the Calendar in the Lutheran Book of Worship." Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Press, 1980.