LEGAL FRAMEWORK

The constitution states all individuals have the right to form religious associations and practice religion in accordance with their personal beliefs, as long as nothing is “preached or practiced which is prejudicial to good morals or public order.” It stipulates everyone has the right to remain outside religious associations and no one shall be required to pay personal dues to any religious association of which he or she is not a member. The constitution also specifies individuals may not lose their civil or national rights and may not refuse to perform civic duties on religious grounds. The constitution bans religious teachings or practices harmful to good morals or public order. The law further specifies the right of individuals to choose or change their religion.

The constitution establishes the ELC as the national church and stipulates the government shall support and protect it. The law grants the ELC official legal status, and the government directly funds it from the state budget. Under a subsidiary agreement between the government and the ELC, the ELC bishop, vice bishop, and other ELC ministers and general staff no longer have civil service status and are no longer paid directly by the government. The church pays salaries, benefits, and operating costs out of its budget, which comes from an annual government lump-sum payment. The ELC also receives funding from government-levied church taxes, as do other registered religious and life-stance groups, proportional to the number of self-reported members.

The penal code establishes unspecified fines and up to two years’ imprisonment for hate speech, including mocking, defaming, denigrating, or threatening a person or group based on religion by comments, pictures, or symbols or disseminating such materials.

Religious groups other than the ELC, as well as life-stance organizations, may apply for recognition and registration. Only registered groups are eligible for state funding and entitled to legal recognition of religious ceremonies, such as marriages, that they perform. Groups apply for recognition to the district commissioner’s office that covers the administration of religion on a national level (currently the District Commissioner’s Office of Northeast Iceland), which forwards the application to a four-member panel appointed by the Minister of Justice to review applications. The University of Iceland faculty of law nominates the panel’s chair, and the university’s Departments of Social and Human Sciences, Theology and Religious Studies, and History and Philosophy, respectively, nominate the other three members. The district commissioner then approves or rejects the application in accordance with the panel’s decision. Applicants may appeal rejections to the Ministry of Justice, resubmitting their application to the district commissioner with additional information. The same four-member panel reviews appeals.

To register, a religious group must “practice a creed or religion,” and a life-stance organization must operate in accordance with certain ethical values and “deal with ethics or epistemology in a prescribed manner.” The law does not define “certain ethical values” or the prescribed manner in which groups must deal with ethics or epistemology. Religious groups and life-stance organizations must also “be well established,” “be active and stable,” “not have a purpose that violates the law or is prejudicial to good morals or public order,” and have “a core group of members who participate in its operations, support the values of the organization in compliance with the teachings it was founded on, and pay church taxes in accordance with the law on church taxes.” The law does not define “well established” or “active and stable.”

According to the District Commissioner’s Office of Northeast Iceland, any unregistered religious group or organization may work in the same way as any company or association, provided it has, as the other organizations do, a social security number. Unregistered religious groups may, for example, open bank accounts and own real estate. Members are free to worship and practice their beliefs without restriction as long as their activities do not cause a public disturbance, incite discrimination, or otherwise conflict with the law.

The law specifies the leader of a registered religious group or life-stance organization must be at least 25 years of age and fulfill the general requirements for holding a public position. These include being physically and mentally healthy and financially independent, not having been sentenced for a criminal offense as a civil servant, and possessing the general and specialized education legally required for the position. Unlike the requirements for most public positions, a religious or life-stance group leader need not be a citizen but must have legal domicile in the country.

All registered religious groups and life-stance organizations must submit an annual report to the relevant district commissioner’s office (currently the District Commissioner’s Office of Northeast Iceland), describing the group’s operations during the previous year. Registered religious groups and life-stance organizations are required to perform state-sanctioned functions, such as marriages and the official naming of children, and preside over other ceremonies, such as funerals.

The law provides state subsidies to registered religious groups and life-stance organizations. For each individual 16 years of age or older who belongs to any of the officially registered and recognized religious groups or life-stance organizations, the government allocates an annual payment from income taxes, called the “church tax,” to the individual’s respective registered organization. The per capita payment amount varies each year according to the annual budget bill. The government allocates the payment regardless of whether the individual pays any income tax. Registers Iceland, the government office that maintains records of basic information on everyone who is or has been domiciled in the country, as well as citizens residing abroad, maintains a tally of the number of members of each registered group, records the religious affiliation or nonaffiliation of each citizen at birth, and adjusts the information if individuals report a change.

Persons who are not members of a registered organization are still required to pay the church tax, but the government retains their contributions as general revenue rather than allocating them to religious or life-stance organizations.

By law, a child’s affiliation or nonaffiliation with a registered religious or life-stance group is determined as follows: (1) if the parents are married or in registered cohabitation and both belong to either the same registered organization or no organization, then the child’s affiliation shall be the same as its parents; (2) if the parents are married or in registered cohabitation, but have different affiliations or if one parent is nonaffiliated, then the parents shall make a joint decision on which organization, if any, the child should be affiliated with, and until the parents make this decision, the child shall remain nonaffiliated; and (3) if the parents are not married or in registered cohabitation when the child is born, the child shall be affiliated with the same registered organization, if any, as the parent who has custody over the child. A change in affiliation of children younger than 16 requires the consent of both parents if both have custody; if only one parent has custody, the consent of the noncustodial parent is not required. The law requires parents to consult their children regarding any changes in the child’s affiliation between ages 12 through 15. After turning 16, children may choose affiliation on their own.

The law specifies that circumcision for religious reasons is permitted.

By law, schools must operate in such a manner as to prevent discrimination on the basis of religion. Grades one through 10 (ages six to 15) in public and private schools must provide instruction by regular teaching staff in social studies, which includes Christianity, ethics, and theology as well as some content on other world religions. The law specifies that the curriculum for these classes must adopt a multicultural approach to religious education encompassing a variety of beliefs. The law also mandates that “the Christian heritage of Icelandic culture, equality, responsibility, concern, tolerance, and respect for human value” shapes general teaching practices.

Parents wishing to exempt pupils from compulsory instruction in Christianity, ethics, and theology must submit a written application to the school principal. The principal may request additional information. The principal then registers the application as a “special case” and writes an official response to the parents, accepting or denying the request. School authorities are not required to offer other religious or secular instruction in place of these classes.

Of the 12 largest municipalities in the country, eight have adopted guidelines or rules governing the interaction between public schools and religious and life-stance groups. The Reykjavik City Council prohibits religious and life-stance groups from conducting any activities, including the distribution of proselytizing material, in municipal preschools and compulsory schools (grades one through 10) during school hours or during afterschool programs. Reykjavik school administrators, may, however, invite the representatives of religious and life-stance groups to visit compulsory classes on Christianity, ethics, theology, and life skills. These visits must be under the guidance of a teacher and in accordance with the curriculum. Any student visits to the gathering places of religious and life-stance groups during school hours must be under the guidance of a teacher as part of a class on religion and life-stance views. During such classes or visits, students may observe rituals but not participate in them. The municipality of Hafnarfjordur has similar rules governing the interaction between schools and religious or life-stance organizations. The municipalities of Kopavogur, Gardabaer, Mosfellsbaer, Arborg, Fjardarbyggd, and Seltjarnarnes have either adopted or adapted guidelines on these interactions set by the Ministry of Education, Science, and Culture. The ministry’s guidelines are broadly similar to those of Reykjavik and Hafnarfjordur.

Private schools must follow the same curriculum as public schools, including the Christianity, ethics, and theology courses taught in social studies classes. Private schools are free, however, to offer additional classes not in the public-school curriculum, including classes in specific religious faiths.

The law prohibits all forms of discrimination in all fields of society, including those based on religious beliefs. The Equality Complaints Committee, an independent agency under the Prime Minister’s Office, reviews complaints and issues fines in cases of violations, unless other applicable statutes specify more severe penalties.

The country is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

GOVERNMENT PRACTICES

The government issued an executive order in January to officially observe January 27 as Holocaust Remembrance Day. It appointed a standing working group of officials from the Prime Minister’s Office, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, and the Ministry of Education and Children’s Affairs as well as representatives from academia and human rights organizations to develop methods to memorialize victims and bolster Holocaust education.

The government registered the life-stance organization the Theosophical Society during the year. As of year’s end, the Greek Orthodox Church’s application, submitted in 2022, and the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, submitted in 2023 remained under government consideration.

Sidmennt continued to criticize authorities for developing policy on religious matters without consulting minority religious groups or life stance organizations. Sidmennt continued to describe the government’s policy as principally focused on creating a legal framework for the ELC, while other religious groups were afterthoughts.

The government reported the 2022 government church tax payment to registered religious and life-stance groups was 13,284 kronur ($98) for each member aged 16 or older, compared with 12,960 kronur ($95) in 2021.

According to the official state budget bill, in 2022, the latest year for which data were available, the government allocated approximately 8.4 billion kronur ($61.7 million) to religious affairs. The ELC received 4.0 billion kronur ($29.4 million) in direct subsidies and an additional 2.5 billion kronur ($18.4 million) from church tax revenue. The other 51 recognized religious and life-stance groups received a total of 612 million kronur ($4.5 million) in church tax distributions. In 2021, the government allocated approximately 8.1 billion kronur ($59.5 million) to religious affairs, of which the ELC received 3.8 billion kronur ($27.9 million) in direct subsidies and an additional 3.9 billion kronur ($28.7 million) in church tax distributions. The other recognized religious and life-stance groups received a total of 579 million kronur ($4.2 million) in church tax distributions.

The ELC continued to manage all cemeteries, and all religious and life-stance groups had equal access to them. Gufunes Cemetery in Reykjavik continued to have an area designated for burials of Muslims and an area for persons of other non-ELC faiths.

The ELC and the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the public University of Iceland continued to train theology students for positions within the ELC.

State radio continued to broadcast Lutheran worship services every Sunday morning as well as a Lutheran daily morning devotion. According to the station’s chief of programming, other religious groups could also broadcast their religious services, but none had sought to do so.

The government continued to require persons applying for a passport to present proof of religion from a religious organization if they wished to receive a religious exemption allowing them to wear a head covering for their passport photographs. The government did not, however, require individuals to obtain a special exemption for wearing a head covering for religious reasons in a driver’s license photo.

Abuses Involving Violence, Detention, or Mass Resettlement

Abuses Limiting Religious Belief and Expression

Abuses Involving the Ability of Individuals to Engage in Religious Activities Alone or In Community with Others

Abuses Involving Discrimination or Unequal Treatment

Other Developments Affecting Religious Freedom