Anton Christian Bang

Anton Christian Bang was a prominent figure in the Church of Norway and the Conservative Party of Norway in the late 19th and early 20th century. He was born in a fisherman family and participated in the Lofoten fishing season as a youth. He attended a teachers' school in Tromsø and studied theology at the University of Oslo, where he received the first doctorate in theology in 1876. He served as a priest in Gran, Tromsø, and Gaustad asylum in Christiania. He became a professor of church history at the University of Oslo in 1885 and a bishop of Oslo in 1896. He was also a minister of education and church affairs from 1893 to 1895 and a member of the Council of State Division in Stockholm in 1895. He was a prolific writer and published several books on church history, theology, folklore, mythology, and occultism. He was a conservative both as a politician and as a theologian. He was also a friend of Aasmund Olavsson Vinje and Elias Blix, and translated the Christmas gospel into Nynorsk. He died in 1913 and was buried at Vår Frelsers gravlund in Oslo.