Erik Varden

Erik Varden (born 13 May 1974) is a Norwegian Catholic prelate, spiritual writer, and Trappist monk. He has served as Bishop of Trondheim since 2020.

Early life and education
Varden was born in a non-practising Lutheran family in South Norway and grew up in the village of Degernes. After concluding his school education in Norway, he continued to study at the Atlantic College, Wales (until 1992) and then at Magdalene College, Cambridge (1992–1995) with Master of Arts degree in Theology and Religious Studies through the Faculty of Divinity. He obtained a doctorate through the same faculty as a member of St John's College, Cambridge, and subsequently a Licentiate of Sacred Theology at the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome.

He officially entered the Catholic Church in June 1993. In 2002 he was admitted to Mount St Bernard Abbey, a Trappist monastery near Coalville in Leicestershire, England 2002; he made his profession on 1 October 2004 and solemn profession on 6 October 2007, and on 16 July 2011 was ordained a priest, in this community by Bishop Malcolm McMahon.

From 2011 to 2013 he was a professor of Syriac language, monastic history, and Christian anthropology at the Pontifical Atheneum of St. Anselm in Rome.

Abbatial ministry
Varden left teaching at St. Anselm in Rome and returned to his abbey in 2013 upon his appointment as superior administrator of the abbey. On 16 April 2015, he 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 to govern this abbey.

Varden is the author of books and articles in the field of Christian spirituality and monasticism. He is likewise a musician and studied Gregorian chant under Mary Berry, later co-founding the Chant Forum with Margaret Truran of Stanbrook Abbey.

In 2015, Varden was interviewed as part of a BBC Four documentary, Saints and Sinners: Britain's Millennium of Monasteries, by Janina Ramirez. In 2019 he was featured in the critically acclaimed feature documentary Outside the city (2019) by Nick Hamer, which was broadcast on BBC, and distributed by Verve Pictures. It won the 2022 Sandford St Martin Award and was nominated for an RTS Award for best documentary in the UK.

Bishop-prelacy of Trondheim
On 1 October 2019, he was appointed by Pope Francis prelate of the Territorial Prelature of Trondheim in his native Norway, which had been vacant for the previous ten years. His episcopal consecration was scheduled for 4 January 2020, but was postponed on account of the short sabbatical period that was granted him as his request and on account also of the restrictions that were later imposed by the spread of COVID-19.

Varden's episcopal consecration took place on 3 October 2020 in Nidaros Cathedral. He is the first native Norwegian Catholic bishop in Trondheim in modern times: his five predecessors were all German missionaries.