Eyvind Skeie
Encyclopedia
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
priest and author.
Skeie is a trained theologian from the MF Norwegian School of Theology
MF Norwegian School of Theology
The Norwegian School of Theology , is a private, independent, accredited Norwegian specialised university...
and was ordained in 1974. He was chaplain
Chaplain
Traditionally, a chaplain is a minister in a specialized setting such as a priest, pastor, rabbi, or imam or lay representative of a religion attached to a secular institution such as a hospital, prison, military unit, police department, university, or private chapel...
in Tromsø
Tromsø
Tromsø is a city and municipality in Troms county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the city of Tromsø.Tromsø city is the ninth largest urban area in Norway by population, and the seventh largest city in Norway by population...
from 1975 to 1980, then worked for Oslo City Mission from 1980 to 1985, and was chaplain in Oslo Cathedral
Oslo Cathedral
Oslo Cathedral — formerly Our Savior's Church — is the main church for the Oslo bishopric of the Church of Norway, as well as the parish church for downtown Oslo. The present building dates from 1694-1697....
from 1984 to 1985. He has since worked as a writer, hymn writer and lecturer.
Eyvind Skeie has written several children programs for TV, among others Portveien 2, Sesam Stasjon
Sesam Stasjon
Sesam Stasjon was a Norwegian children's television series that ran on NRK1 based on Sesame Street. It quickly became the most popular children's show in Norway after its début in 1991, and 198 episodes were made until 1998. Unlike their predecessors from all over the world it is set in a railway...
, textbooks, poetry books and stories for children and adults. He has registered about 1,500 songs and hymns in TONO
TONO
TONO is a Norwegian corporation that administers copyrights for music in Norway.It is owned and governed by its members; composers, music publishers and text-writers...
, the Norwegian copyright organization, and has also been in the board of different the copyright organizations. In 2007 Skeie published 316 salmer og sanger, a book with his own hymns. His most famous song is En stjerne skinner i natt, ('A Star is Shining Tonight'), co-written with Tore W. Aas. The song has beens recorded by, among others, Oslo Gospel Choir
Oslo Gospel Choir
Oslo Gospel Choir is a Norwegian gospel choir residing in Oslo, Norway conducted by Tore W. Aas. The choir started up in 1988 and has since then become one of the most successful in Europe with success both in Europe and America. They have released around 20 releases...
and Swedish singer Carola Häggkvist
Carola Häggkvist
Carola Maria Häggkvist , better known as simply Carola, is a Swedish singer and occasional songwriter. She has been among Sweden's most popular performers since the early 1980s, and has released albums ranging from pop and disco to hymns and folk music...
. Together with Sigvald Tveit, Skeie wrote Visst skal våren komme ('Surely Spring Will Come'). The song Tenn lys ('Ignite', music by Sigvald Tveit) have found its way from the TV series Portveien 2 and into the Norwegian hymn book. In 2007 Eyvind Skeie, together with graphic artist and painter Terje Grøstad and graphic designer Klaus Erik Krogh, published Vann av klippen ('Water From the Rock'), an illustrated text collection of some 400 prayers and meditations by Skeie.
Eyvind Skeie has also had international engagements, particularly related to religion. In a period he had close contact with communities in Azerbaijan and participated in an archaeological excavation. He also traveled with researcher Thor Heyerdahl
Thor Heyerdahl
Thor Heyerdahl was a Norwegian ethnographer and adventurer with a background in zoology and geography. He became notable for his Kon-Tiki expedition, in which he sailed by raft from South America to the Tuamotu Islands...
on his travel from Baku
Baku
Baku , sometimes spelled as Baki or Bakou, is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. It is located on the southern shore of the Absheron Peninsula, which projects into the Caspian Sea. The city consists of two principal...
to Tbilisi
Tbilisi
Tbilisi is the capital and the largest city of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Mt'k'vari River. The name is derived from an early Georgian form T'pilisi and it was officially known as Tiflis until 1936...
in the hunt for Odin
Odin
Odin is a major god in Norse mythology and the ruler of Asgard. Homologous with the Anglo-Saxon "Wōden" and the Old High German "Wotan", the name is descended from Proto-Germanic "*Wodanaz" or "*Wōđanaz"....
. Through his wife's sister, Skeie is a brother-in-law of former Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik
Kjell Magne Bondevik
Kjell Magne Bondevik is a Norwegian Lutheran minister and politician . He served as Prime Minister of Norway from 1997 to 2000, and from 2001 to 2005, making him Norway's longest serving non-Labour Party Prime Minister since World War II...
. The King of Norway honored Eyvind Skeie as Commander of the Order of St. Olav in 2007.