The Kingdom of Sweden has a monarchical form of government, but all the rights and freedoms of the citizens of this country are legalized in the Constitution. Religion in this state is represented by a set of religious beliefs and worldviews, the legality of which is presented in the Basic Law of the state.
History of religion
In the pre-Christian period, the Swedes were pagans, their pantheon of gods was very rich, and was a bit reminiscent of the pantheon of Ancient Greece and Rome. The priests enjoyed great respect in society; temples were built everywhere in which sacrifices were made to the gods. The most famous cult monument was the temple in Old Uppsala.
In the oral folk art of the Swedes one can find parables and legends about sacrificing the most noble and worthy young men and women in order to appease the gods. For example, King Domald of Sweden was sacrificed (with his voluntary consent) to stop the long-term harvest and save the people from starvation.
The spread of Christianity is associated with the name of Saint Ansgar, who in 859 carried out missionary activities during his visit to this country. Ansgar at that time was fleeing the invasion of the Vikings, who were pagans and brutally persecuted Christians.
Almost all countries of the world have a date for official baptism and adoption of any world religion, but in Sweden this date is missing, since there is no exact date in the chronicles and annals, and the baptism of different regions of the country took place in different years.
But it is reliably known that in the 1st-10th centuries the territory of Sweden was inhabited by two tribes: the Getae and the Svei, who had different attitudes towards the adoption of Christianity. If the Getae adopted this religion and built temples and churches on their lands, then the Svei remained pagans for another two centuries.
Acceptance of Christianity
The Swedish king Olaf Shetkonung was the first who was able to unite both the Getae and the Svei under his rule. It was he who was the first Christian ruler, since he was baptized in 1008 and founded the first bishopric on his lands and strongly welcomed the baptism of his subjects.
But almost eighty years passed until Christianity was recognized as the state religion throughout Sweden, after Inge 1 the Elder destroyed the temples of the worship of pagan gods and opened persecution of priests and pagans. Although some Vikings secretly still practiced the old religion.
The emergence of Lutheranism in Sweden
The spread of the Reformed Church in Sweden is connected with the name of Martin Luther and his followers. The Reformation here was difficult, since it was Sweden that became the first country to replace Catholicism with a reform religion.
In 1593, the Swedish Church Synod declared Lutheranism the state religion, and all other religions were banned. The Protestants of this country defined their life under the slogan: “One country, one people, one religion.”
The State of Modern Religion in Sweden
According to statistics, 85% of the state's citizens are atheists. Other sources indicate a different figure - 94%. Sweden holds the record for the number of atheists. Although every citizen of the country is assigned to the state Lutheran church from the moment of birth, upon reaching adulthood he has the right to change his religion. True, some citizens of the country do not even know that they are parishioners of this church.
Religion in Sweden is often referred to as the "religion of the non-believers" because less than 15% of the population shows that they believe in Jesus Christ or other spirits or some kind of divine force. Many citizens consider the baptism, wedding or funeral service of people as a kind of tribute to the well-known order. And since the Swedes, for the most part, are very respectable and law-abiding, they perform these rituals according to the tradition received from their ancestors.
Only 1% of the country's population are Orthodox Christians, less than half a million Muslims live in the country, mainly immigrants from the East, and about 18 thousand Jews.
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Material from the ABC of pilgrims
Kingdom of Sweden(Swede. Konungariket Sverige), Sweden(Swede. Sverige) is a state in Northern Europe on the Scandinavian Peninsula. Form of government - Constitutional monarchy. The name of the country comes from Old Norse Svea And Ridge- “state of the Svei.” The capital is Stockholm. In terms of area (449,964 km²), Sweden ranks fifth among European countries.
Largest cities
- Stockholm
- Gothenburg
- Malmo
- Uppsala
Orthodoxy in Sweden
Orthodoxy in Sweden(Swede. Ortodoxi i Sverige) is one of the traditional Christian denominations that has become widespread in Sweden since the 17th century. Orthodoxy is practiced by about 0.6% of the country's population (~63.5 thousand people as of 2013).
Story
The first seeds of Christianity were brought to Sweden in the 9th century by its first enlightener, Bishop Ansgar.
Thanks to trade ties with Veliky Novgorod, as well as dynastic marriages, Orthodoxy was well known in medieval Sweden.
In the 12th-13th centuries, Russian Orthodox merchant churches, consecrated in honor of St. Nicholas, appeared in Sigtuna and on the island of Gotland.
Since 1617, after the conclusion of the Stolbovo Peace Treaty, a merchant house church was built in Stockholm at the Russian trading court.
Since 1969, the Swedish Metropolis of the Patriarchate of Constantinople was established in Sweden, and since 1990, the British-Scandinavian Diocese of the Serbian Orthodox Church.
Since the 1980s, the Greek Old Calendar Synod of Opponents opened its mission in Sweden, headed by Bishop John of Mariopol (Deurloo). The mission includes the Church of St. Constantine and Helena in Stockholm, the Assumption Church in Uppsala and the convent of St. Philothea of Athens (work is underway on the construction of a monastery). Since 1988, the mission has published a magazine in Swedish, Orthodoxt kyrkoliv.
In 2007, the Romanian Patriarchate established the Northern European Diocese in Sweden.
Since 1962, an Orthodox magazine in Swedish, Orthodox tidning, has been published in Stockholm.
Patriarchate of Constantinople
The Patriarchate of Constantinople is represented on the territory of the country by the Swedish and Scandinavian Metropolis, headed by Metropolitan Cleopas (Strongilis) of Stockholm and Scandinavia.
In the historical part of Stockholm, the Greeks acquired the cathedral of the Catholic Apostolic Church, built in 1890, and re-consecrated in 1970 in honor of St. St. George the Victorious. On November 9, 2014, the St. Nicholas Monastery was established in the village of Rettvik.
As of 2013, the metropolis had 17.5 thousand registered members and published a monthly leaflet in Greek.
In 1931, the Russian Transfiguration parish came under the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople and is currently part of the Archdiocese of Russian parishes in Western Europe.
In the 2000s, Swedish-speaking parishes became part of the parishes of the Archdiocese in Sweden: in Everkalix, Gothenburg, there is also a women's skete of the Exaltation of the Cross. The Transfiguration Parish in Stockholm publishes the theological and informational parish magazine “Holy Transfiguration Orthodox Church” (“Kristi Förklarings ortodoxa kyrka”) in Russian and Swedish versions.
Finnish Orthodox parish
After World War II, about 6 thousand Orthodox Finns left Finland for Sweden and founded Finnish Orthodox communities in several cities.
To date, due to assimilation and the reduction in the number of Orthodox Finns, only one parish remains in the country - St. Nicholas in Stockholm.
The parish is under the jurisdiction of the Greek Swedish and Scandinavian Metropolis, and on December 25, 2014, Metropolitan Cleopas (Strongilis) ordained priest Nikolaos Hammarberg, who became the new rector of the Finnish St. Nicholas parish, at St. George's Cathedral in Stockholm.
Patriarchate of Antioch
The Antiochian Orthodox Church is represented in Sweden by a number of Arab Orthodox parishes that are part of the Central European Diocese, headed since 2013 by Metropolitan Ignatius (Al-Hushi). There is a Resurrection Parish in the city of Gothenburg.
Moscow Patriarchate
The Russian Orthodox Church has been officially represented in Sweden since 1617 thanks to the first Russian church in honor of the Praise of the Blessed Virgin Mary, founded at the Russian trading court under the Stolbovo Peace Treaty. Later, the church became an embassy church and was consecrated in honor of the Transfiguration of the Lord.
Russian clergy - Archpriest Arseny Sudakov and Priest Vasily Arkhangelsky carried out the first translations of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom and St. Basil the Great, laying the foundation for the translation of Orthodox liturgical and doctrinal books into Swedish.
In the 1980s, the Society of St. Sergius of Radonezh arose in Stockholm, which, having entered the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate in 1996, served as the basis of the St. Sergius parish of the Russian Orthodox Church in Stockholm. Since the late 1990s, Russian parishes have been operating in Sweden in the cities of Gothenburg, Västerås, Umeå, Uppsala and others and are united into the Swedish Deanery of the Moscow Patriarchate. Since 2004, the deanery has been headed by the Representative of the Moscow Patriarchate in Finland, Archpriest Victor Lyutik.
Serbian Patriarchate
In the 1960s, due to mass labor emigration, more than 26 thousand people from Serbia ended up in Sweden. In the 1970s, the British-Scandinavian Diocese of the Serbian Patriarchate was established in Sweden, uniting about two dozen Orthodox parishes in Sweden: in Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmö, Helsingborg, Halmstad, etc.
There is a Serbian male monastery of St. George in Olofström.
The size of the Serbian diaspora in 2014 was estimated in Sweden at ~39 thousand people (of which ~20 thousand in the Stockholm region).
Swedish deanery
In the 1980s, a Swedish deanery was established within the diocese, consisting of 4 parishes in which Swedish is the liturgical and spoken language - the parish of St. Anne of Novgorod, the parish of St. Demetrius in Kristianstad and others.
In 2001, Archimandrite Dorotheus (Forsner) founded the Swedish-speaking Holy Trinity Monastery in the town of Bredared, near the town of Borås.
Romanian Patriarchate
The parishes of the Romanian Patriarchate in Sweden are part of the Northern European Diocese and are governed by Bishop Macarius (Draga) of Scandinavia.
In Stockholm, the Romanian community founded parishes in honor of the Holy Great Martyr George the Victorious (Vanadisplan district), the Assumption of the Mother of God (Bredäng district), Holy Trinity and John the Baptist (in the Solna district). There are Romanian parishes in the cities of: Borås (in honor of the Holy Archangels Michael, Gabriel and Raphael), Gothenburg (in honor of the Holy Spirit), Gotland (in honor of St. Nicholas), Halmstad, Helsingborg, Hillersturp, Jönköping (in honor of the Intercession Mother of God), Kristianstad (in honor of the archdeacons Stephen and Lawrence), Linkoping (in honor of St. George the Victorious), Malmö (in honor of the Holy Spirit), Örebro, Sölvesborg (in honor of the holy martyrs Athanasius, Basil), Umeå, Uppsala (in honor of the Three Saints), Västerås (in honor of St. Constantine and Helena) and Växjö (in honor of the Exaltation of the Cross).
Macedonian Orthodox Church
The Macedonian Orthodox Church is represented in the Kingdom of Sweden by several parishes belonging to the European diocese and governed by Metropolitan Pimen (Ilievsky).
In January 1973, in the city of Malmo, the Macedonians founded a parish in honor of St. Naum of Ohrid, and in 2006 the construction of a spacious church in honor of St. Naum was completed.
As of 2012, the Macedonian parish had about 4 thousand members.
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Books
- The Loneliness of Alina Vorobeva, Dragan Mijailovich, The author of the novel is a priest of the Serbian Orthodox Church Dragan Mijalovic was born in Belgrade in 1953. His parents separated when he was a child, and he was raised by a Russian for several years... Publisher: Aletheia,
