From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Religion in Sweden was originally pagan, but with Christianization in the 11th century the country became Catholic. Since the Protestant Reformation in the 1530s the Church and state has been separated. However, the Lutheran Church of Sweden (Swedish: Svenska kyrkan) held the position of state church until 2000. As of 2004, 78.3% of the Swedes were members of the church. However, only approximately 2% of the church's members regularly attend Sunday services.^[1]

Numerous other religious groups are represented in the Swedish society. The history of the Jews in Sweden can be traced back to the seventeenth century. Due to immigration, there is also a significant number of Swedish Muslims, as well as Syriac Christians. Immigration, most notably from Poland and former Yugoslavia, is also the reason behind the fast growth of the Catholic Church in Sweden.

Contents 1 Norse Paganism 2 The Christianization of Sweden 3 The Protestant Reformation 4 Liberalization and other faiths 5 Free churches 6 Religion in Sweden today 7 Notes 8 External links

Before the 11th century, Swedes adhered to Norse paganism, worshiping Æsir gods, with its centre at the Temple in Uppsala. The shape and location of this temple is sparsely documented, but it is referenced in the Norse sagas and Saxo Grammaticus' Gesta Danorum, and is also described by Adam of Bremen. It was probably destroyed by King Ingold I in 1087 during the last known battle between the pagans and the Christians.

While Norse mythology as a distinct religion was officially abondoned following the Christianization of Scandinavia, belief in many of its mythological creatures such as "tomtar", trolls and dwarves lived on for long time in Scandinavian folklore.

The earliest campaign to Christianize the territories that form what today is the country of Sweden was made by the monk Ansgar (801–865). Making his first visit to Birka in 829, he was granted permission to build a church. In 831, he returned home and became Archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen, with responsibility for Christianity in the north. Around 850, he came back to Birka, where the original congregation had been shattered. Ansgar tried to reestablish it, but it only lasted a few years. During the following hundred years, attempts at Christianization would largely fail.

Christianity first gained a hold in Västergötland, some time shortly before or around the turn of the millenium. According to Adam of Bremen, the Christian king Olof Skötkonung, who ruled from c. 995 to c. 1022 was forced to limit Christian activities to the western province. When King Stenkil ascended to the throne in 1060 Christianity was firmly established throughout most of Sweden, although the people of Uppland resisted the new religion.

The last king adhering to the old religion was Blot-Sweyn, who reigned 1084–1087. A national church of Sweden was not organized until the middle of the 12th century, during the reign of Eric the Saint (1150-1160). According to legend, Erik also undertook the First Swedish Crusade, a military expedition aiming to convert the Finns to Christianity and conquering Finland as Swedish territory. (However, no archeological data or written sources seem to support the legend. The diocese and bishop of Finland are not listed among their Swedish counterparts before the 1250s.)

The Protestant Reformation in Sweden is generally regarded as a political tool used by the king to secure control over the church and its assets. Shortly after Gustav Vasa was elected king in 1521, he requested that the Pope would confirm Johannes Magnus as Archbishop of Sweden, replacing Gustav Trolle, who had supported the Danish king Christian II and was convicted for treason. When the Pope refused, Gustav Vasa started to promote the Swedish Lutheran reformers Olaus, Laurentius Petri, and Laurentius Andreae. Gustav Trolle was eventually forced into exile, and soon all ecclesiastical property was transferred to the Crown. The ties with Rome were cut, and in 1531 Laurentius Petri was elected the first Protestant primate of Sweden.

Originally, no changes were made to official church doctrine. Gradually, in spite of popular protests against the introduction of "Luthery", teachings were aligned with continental protestantism. King John III of Sweden, one of Gustav Vasa's sons, later took measures to bring the Church back towards Catholicism. However, after his death, his brother, Duke Charles summoned the Uppsala Synod in 1593, which again moved the Church of Sweden away from Catholicism, adopting the Augsburg confession.

The move put Charles at odds with the heir to the throne, his nephew Sigismund III Vasa, who was raised in the Catholic faith. Although Sigismund promised to uphold Lutheranism, Duke Charles aspirations to power led to the War against Sigismund, a power struggle that was effectively decided at the Battle of Stångebro in 1598, in favour of Charles - and Protestantism.

During the era following the Reformation, usually known as the period of Lutheran Orthodoxy, small groups of non-Lutherans, especially Calvinist Dutchmen, the Moravian Church and Walloons or French Huguenots from Belgium, played a significant role in trade and industry, and were quietly tolerated as long as they kept a low religious profile. The Sami originally had their own shamanistic religion, but they were converted to Lutheranism by Swedish missionaries in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Not until liberalization in the late 18th century, however, were believers of other faiths, including Judaism and Catholicism, allowed to openly live and work in Sweden, although it remained illegal until 1860 for Lutheran Swedes to convert to another religion.

The 19th century saw the arrival of various evangelical free churches, and, towards the end of the century secularism, leading many to distance themselves from Church rituals. Leaving the Church of Sweden became legal with the so-called dissenter law of 1860, but only under the provision of entering another denomination. The right to stand outside any religious denomination was established in the Law on Freedom of Religion in 1951.

Today, the Swedish Free Church Council (Swedish: Sveriges Frikyrkosamråd) organizes free churches in Sweden, belonging to various Protestant denominations: Baptists, Methodists, Reformed, Pentecostal etc. In total the member churches have around 250,000 members. The largest member church is the Mission Covenant Church of Sweden, with approximately 65,000 members.

Today about 78% of Swedes belong to the Church of Sweden, but the number is decreasing by about one per cent every year, and Church of Sweden services are sparsely attended (hovering in the single digit percentages of the population).^[2] The reason for the large number of inactive members is partly that until 1996, children became members automatically at birth if at least one of their parents were a member. Since 1996, all children that are baptised become members. Some 275,000 Swedes are today members of various free churches (where congregation attendance is much higher), and, in addition, immigration has meant that there are now some 92,000 Roman Catholics and 100,000 Eastern Orthodox Christians living in Sweden.^[3] Due to immigration, Sweden also has a significant Muslim population. As many as 500,000 are Muslims by tradition^[4] and between 80,000 - 400,000 of these are practicing Muslims. (See also Islam in Sweden)

According to the most recent Eurostat "Eurobarometer" poll, in 2005,^[5] 23% of Swedish citizens responded that "they believe there is a god", whereas 53% answered that "they believe there is some sort of spirit or life force" and 23% that "they do not believe there is any sort of spirit, god, or life force". Sweden ranks aside with France and Russia on having a large minority of its citizens who have no religion. Independent of these statistics, it is gererally known that Swedish society, collectively, is comparatively secular and non-religious.^[6]

• Church of Sweden - Official site