The
Church of Sweden ( , , ) is the largest Christian Church in Sweden
. The
Church of Sweden professes the
Lutheran
branch of
Christianity, and is a member
of the
Porvoo Communion. With
almost 6.9 million members, it is the largest Lutheran church in
the world. Until 2000 it held the position of
state church. As of 2008, 72.9% (down 1.4%
compared to 2007) of Swedes were members of the church. However,
only approximately 2% of the church's members regularly attend
Sunday services.
The Church describes itself in the following manner:
- The Church of Sweden is an Evangelical Lutheran community of
faith manifested in parishes and dioceses. The Church of Sweden also has a national
organisation.
- The Church of Sweden is an open national church, which, working
with a democratic organisation and through
the ministry of the church, covers the whole nation.
The
Primate of the Church of
Sweden is the
Archbishop of
Uppsala, currently
Anders
Wejryd.
Theology
King
Gustav I Vasa instigated the
Church of Sweden in 1536 during his reign as
King of Sweden. This act separated the
church from the
Catholic Church and
abandoned
canon law. In 1572, the
Swedish Church Ordinance
became the first Swedish church order following the
Reformation.
The Church joined the
Lutheran faith at
the
Uppsala Synod in 1593 when it
adopted the
Augsburg Confession
to which most Lutherans adhere. At this synod, it was decided that
the Church would retain the three original Christian
creeds: the
Apostles'
Creed, the
Athanasian Creed and
the
Nicene Creed.
In 1686,
the Parliament of
Sweden
adopted the Book of
Concord, although only certain parts labeled Confessio
fidei were considered binding, and the other texts merely
explanatory. Confessio dei included the three
aforementioned Creeds, the Augsburg Confession and two Uppsala
Synod decisions from 1572 and 1593.
During the 19th and 20th centuries, a variety of teachings were
officially approved, mostly directed towards
ecumenism:
In practice, however, the Lutheran creed texts play a minor role,
and instead the parishes rely on Lutheran tradition in coexistence
with influences from other Christian denominations and diverse
ecclesial movements such as
Low Church,
High Church,
Pietism ("Old Church") and
Laestadianism, who locally might be strongly
established, but who have little nation-wide influence.
During the 20th century the Church of Sweden has oriented itself
strongly towards
liberal
Christianity and
human rights.
Since 1958, women have been
ordained
as priests, and since 1994, men who oppose collaboration with
women priests are not allowed
ordination.
A proposal to perform
same-sex
weddings was approved on October 22, 2009 by a majority of 176
of 249 voting members.
History
Church of Sweden statistics
| year |
population |
church members |
percentage |
| 1972 |
8,146,000 |
7,754,784 |
95.2 % |
| 1980 |
8,278,000 |
7,690,636 |
92.9 % |
| 1990 |
8,573,000 |
7,630,350 |
89.0 % |
| 2000 |
8,880,000 |
7,360,825 |
82.9 % |
| 2005 |
9,048,000 |
6,967,498 |
77.0 % |
| 2006 |
9,119,000 |
6,893,901 |
75.6 % |
| 2007 |
9,179,000 |
6,820,161 |
74.3 % |
| 2008 |
9,262,000 |
6,751,952 |
72.9 % |
Middle Ages
While some Swedish areas had Christian minorities in the 9th
century, Sweden was, because of its geographical location in
northernmost
Europe, not
Christianized until around AD 1000, around
the same time as the other
Nordic
countries, when the Swedish King
Olof was baptized.
However, Norse paganism and other pre-Christian
religious systems survived in the territory of what is now Sweden
later than that; for instance the important religious center known
as the Temple at Uppsala at
Gamla
Uppsala
was evidently still in use in the late 11th
century, while there was little effort to introduce the Sami of Lapland
until
considerably after that.
The Christian church in Scandinavia was originally governed by the
archdiocese of Bremen. In 1104
an archbishop for all Scandinavia was installed in
Lund. Uppsala was made
Sweden's archdiocese in 1164, and
remains so today.
The papal diplomat William of Modena attended a church
meeting in Skänninge
in March 1248, where the ties to the Catholic
Church were strengthened.
The most
cherished national Catholic saints were the
12th-century King Eric the Saint
and the 14th-century visionary Bridget, but other regional heroes also
had a local cult following, including Saint
Botvid and Saint Eskil in Södermanland
, Saint Helena of
Skövde and Saint Sigfrid in
Småland
. In
their names,
miracles were performed and
churches were named.
Reformation
Shortly after seizing power in 1523,
Gustav
Vasa addressed the
Pope in Rome with a
request for the confirmation of
Johannes
Magnus as
Archbishop of
Sweden, in the place of
Gustav
Trolle who had been formally deposed and exiled by the
Riksdag of the Estates.
Gustav promised to be an obedient son of the Church, if the pope
would confirm the elections of his bishops. But the pope requested
Trolle to be re-instated. King Gustav protested by promoting the
Swedish reformers, the brothers
Olaus
and
Laurentius Petri, and
Laurentius Andreae. The king supported
the printing of reformation texts, with the Petri brothers as the
major instructors on the texts. In 1526 all Catholic
printing-presses were suppressed, and two-thirds of the Church's
tithes were appropriated for the payment of the national debt. As
Gustav Vasa triumphs 3 was formulated, a
final breach was made with the traditions of the old
religion.
Other changes of the reformation included the abolition of some
Catholic rituals.
However, the changes were not as drastic as
in Germany
; in many
Swedish churches there still today remain artifacts from Catholic
times, such as crosses, crucifixes and icons.
And many holy days, based on
saints days,
were not removed from the calendar until the late 18th century due
to strong resistance from the population.
After the
death of Gustav Vasa, Sweden was ruled by a king with Catholicizing
tendencies, John III, and another
openly Catholic one, John's son Sigismund, who was also ruler of Catholic
Poland
but eventually deposed from the Swedish throne by
his uncle. The latter, who acceded to the throne as
Charles IX used the Lutheran church as
an instrument in his power struggle against his nephew, but is
known to have had
Calvinist
leanings.
The New Testament was translated to Swedish in 1526 and the entire
Bible in 1541. Revised translations were published in 1618 and
1703. New official translations were adopted in 1917 and 2000. Many
hymns were written by Swedish church reformers and several by
Martin Luther were translated. A
semi-official hymnal appeared in the 1640s. Official hymnals of the
Church of Sweden ( ) were adopted in 1695, 1819, 1937 and 1986. The
latter one is
ecumenical and combines
traditional hymns with songs from other Christian denominations,
including
Seventh-day
Adventist, Baptist, Catholic,
Mission Covenant,
Methodist, Pentecostalist, and the Salvation Army.
Lutheran Orthodoxy
The 19th
century back to one found in Uppsala Cathedral
. It is blazoned
Or, on a cross Gules an
open crown of the field and thus features a yellow field with
a red cross on which there is an open red crown. The crown is
called the victory crown of
Christ, based on
the
medieval tradition.
Church politics
The Church adopted, at the time that it was still a state church,
an administrative structure largely modelled after the state.
Direct elections are held to Church, Diocese, Community ( ) and
Parish ( ) assemblies. The electoral system is the same as used in
the parliamentary or municipal elections. The groups that take part
in the elections are called
nominating
groups ( ). In some cases the nationwide
political parties take part in the
elections, such as the
Social Democrats, the
Moderates and the
Centre Party.
After the
formal separation of Church of Sweden from the State of Sweden, the growing
tendency in the elections is towards independent parties forming
for candidature, either based on a political conviction, for
example Folkpartister i
Svenska kyrkan founded by Liberal People's Party
members, or a pure church party such as the political independents'
Partipolitiskt
obundna i Svenska kyrkan (POSK).
Administrative divisions
The Church of Sweden is divided into thirteen
dioceses ( ). A diocese is divided into "contracts"
( ), which are then divided into
parishes (
). One or several parishes may together form a larger parish (
).
Dioceses, with seats, cathedrals and bishops
The dioceses of Uppsala, Strängnäs, Västerås, Skara, Linköping,
Växjö and the now Finnish
diocese
of Turku, are the original seven Swedish dioceses, dating from
the middle ages. The rest have come into existence after that time
and the Swedish reformation in the 16th century.
See also
Other current and former state and national churches in the
Nordic Evangelical-Lutheran tradition
Footnotes
References
External links
(WCC),
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