Erik Varden
Erik Varden, O.C.S.O. is a Norwegian Roman Catholic spiritual writer and Bishop-Prelate of the Roman Catholic Territorial Prelature of Trondheim since 1 October 2019.Life
Fr. Varden was born in a non-practising Lutheran family in South Norway and grew up in the village of Degernes. His Christian life was inspired by Fr. Tadeusz Hoppe, S.D.B. After school education in his native country, he continued to study at the Atlantic College, Wales and after at Magdalene College of the University of Cambridge with Master of Arts degree. He officially joined the Catholic Church in June 1993. Also he made a doctorate at the St John's College, Cambridge and licentiate at the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome. During 2011–2013 he was a professor of Syriac language, monastic history, and Christian anthropology at the Pontifical Atheneum of St. Anselm in Rome.
He joined Mount St Bernard Abbey, Trappist monastery near Coalville in England in 2002; he made a profession on 1 October 2004 and a solemn profession on 6 October 2007, and was ordained as priest on 16 July 2011, for this community by Bishop Malcolm McMahon.
Fr. Varden ceased to teach at the St. Anselm in Rome and returned to his Abbey in 2013, because of his appointment as a Superior Administrator. On 16 April 2015, Dr Erik Varden became the eleventh Abbot of Mount St Bernard Abbey, following a further election, also becoming the first abbot to have been born outside Britain or Ireland. He also is an author of books and articles in the field of Christian spirituality and monasticism. He is also a musician and studied Gregorian Chant under Dr Mary Berry, later co-founding the Chant Forum with Dame Margaret Truran of Stanbrook Abbey. In 2015, Abbot Varden was interviewed as part of a BBC Four documentary, Saints and Sinners: Britain's Millennium of Monasteries, by Dr Janina Ramirez.
On 1 October 2019, he was appointed by Pope Francis as the Prelate of the Territorial Prelature of Trondheim in his native Norway, that was vacant for the last ten years. The consecration of Fr. Varden was scheduled for 4 January 2020 but was postponed citing health reasons.
