Iceland as she supported the publication of the first translation of Baháʼí literature, John Esslemont's Baháʼu'lláh and the New Era, in Icelandic in 1939. By 1949 there were still just two Baháʼís in Iceland. In February 1956 the first pioneer arrived in Iceland from Canada Marguerite Allman, this pioneer, later sent word of the first native Icelander joining the religion by 1957 - her name was Erica Petursson. These first contacts with Iceland returned few visible results except for Árnadóttir becoming a Baháʼí but by 1963 there was a registered group of Baháʼís in Reykjavík including two American pioneers. In 1964 a Canadian Baháʼí visited all the members of the community including a long trek to visit Jochum Eggertson who lived several months of the year in a remote location - that land he later willed for the Baháʼí community and it became a site for a summer school and an endowment. Growth The first Baháʼí Local Spiritual Assembly of Iceland is elected in 1965. Its members were Asgeir Einarsson, Kirsten Bonnevie, Florence Grindlay, Jessie Echevarria, Carl John Spencer, Charles Grindlay, Liesel Becker, Barbel Thinat and Nicholas Echevarria. The Baháʼí Faith was officially recognized as a religious organization by the Icelandic government on September 29, 1966, which gave it the right to legally perform marriages and other ceremonies as well as entitle it to a share of the church tax in proportion to its number of adult members. Until 1973, when Ásatrúarfélagið was founded, the Baháʼí Community was the only non-Christian religious organization in Iceland and it remained the largest such organization until 1999 when it was passed in numbers by the Buddhist Association of Iceland. On August 16, 1967, a Baháʼí wedding took place in Árbæjarkirkja, a church belonging to the Lutheran Church of Iceland. The bride was Icelandic and the groom Italian. The officiant was Ásgeir Einarsson, the man recognized by the government as head of the group (though individual Baháʼís hold no leadership roles). Ásgeir Einarsson commented that the Church of Iceland had been more friendly to the Baháʼí community than state churches in other countries and that Bishop Sigurbjörn Einarsson had given them a "favorable and sympathetic" evaluation when they applied to the government for recognition. When word of the wedding ceremony reached the bishop, he expressed surprise that it had taken place in a Christian church and commented that he would have recommended against such