On October 15, I had the opportunity to speak in Trondheim, Norway, as a representative of the Diocese of Tallinn and as the postulator for the canonization process of the Blessed Eduard Profittlich, in Trondheim, to speak about Archbishop Eduard Profittlich, who was declared Blessed in Tallinn a year ago. On October 16, I was pleased to have a brief conversation with Bishop Erik Varden of the Diocese of Trondheim.
Here is a brief summary of this discussion.
Marge: I would like the topic of our brief conversation to be holiness. Yesterday, as I began my presentation, I told the audience that although I am speaking about a venerable man, the late Eduard Profittlich, my presentation is actually about holiness. Bishop Erik, I would like to ask for your opinion—what are the contemporary perspectives on holiness, and how should we speak about holiness and being holy, especially to young people?
Bishop Erik: The most important thing is to root that conversation in the Church’s teaching, in the great constitution on the Church of the Second Vatican Council that insists that everyone who is a baptized Christian is called to holiness, that the saint isn’t a particular category of person, but it is simply the Christian who fully embraces his or her call and says an unreserved “yes” to God’s grace, God’s call, God’s transformative action. So, the saint, the holy woman or man, is simply a Christian who is fully configured to Jesus Christ and that’s what we all should desire to be and what we’re all called to be and God will help us reach that goal if only we let him.
Marge: Thinking of the holiness of Blessed Eduard Profittlich, whose canonization is pending and through whose intercession people are called to pray, I would like to ask: Why do we actually need saints to intercede for us?
Bishop Erik: Because we need friends, because a man is not made to be alone and because God has created the universe in time and eternity in such a way that we help one another to reach the fulfillment of our life, to perform our life’s task and become saints. So even as if I were to find myself now in some sort of pain or illness, I might ask you: “Please, would you pray for me?”, conscious that that bond of prayer and what the Lord says, you know, where two or three are gathered together, I am in the midst of them, praying to the saints is just extending that logic beyond the threshold of death and reminding ourselves that the visible Church is one with the invisible Church, as we ascertain in every Mass at the end of the preface before the Sanctus.
Marge: And what are your recommendations for people today? How should one pray under the intercession of Blessed Eduard Profittlich?
Bishop Erik: I’m not sure the words matter all that much, but what would you do if… what would you do if you had a new friend? If you just met somebody at in a cinema queue, in the supermarket or at a meeting, and you had a brief exchange, and you both thought, “This is an interesting person, I’d like to continue this conversation.” Well, the first thing you would do would be to make an appointment to have coffee together, and you would find out more about one another. So, in order to establish a relationship with the saints – and prayer is a relationship – first of all, we must get to know them and give them a chance to get to know us. So, in Blessed Profeldt’s case, the thing to do would be to consider his life, to look at some of his letters perhaps, his shorter writings, to consider the specificity of his testimony, and then just to talk to him about your concerns, your needs, and see how the two overlap. And just by proceeding like that, you’ll already be praying and you won’t be bothering too much about what might or might not be the right words.
Marge: And my last question… We’ve talked about how the Catholic Church in Norway and the Catholic Church in Estonia are quite similar and growing in their respective journeys, and that we are currently experiencing a so-called ‘spring of religious awakening’—so what would be your message to Catholics in Estonia?
Bishop Erik: Love the Lord and be faithful!
Marge: Thank you!
The conversation with Bishop Erik Varden took place in Trondheim on October 16, 2026,
Marge Paas.