Detta arbete, inom ämnet Kristendomens historia, presenterar en svenskkyrklig orden, ”Franciskus Tredje Orden inom Svenska kyrkan” (F.T.O.), som tillhör den ”Tredje Orden” (TSSF) inom ”The Society of Saint Francis” (SSF), en ordensgemenskap inom den Anglikanska kyrkan, Church of England. Orden är öppen för kvinnor och män, vigda (biskopar, präster och diakoner) och lekfolk som lever vanliga liv i familj och samhälle, med en vilja att leva sina liv utifrån en tydlig inspiration av den helige Franciskus och hans liv. Syftet med arbetet är att undersöka och redogöra för de primärkällor som finns från tiden av F.T.O.: s grundande för att svara på frågan om huruvida Ordens uppkomst var förenlig eller ej med den Svenska kyrkan, dess tro, lära och bekännelse. Undersökningen inleds med en deskriptiv del gällande bakgrunden till frågeställningen där jag redogör något för reformationen och vad detta medförde för Svenska kyrkan gällande klosterliv. Sedan följer en redogörelse och en hermeneutiskt och dogmatisk analys av de, för tiden av Ordens grundande, aktuella källorna. En sammanfattning av resultatet som framkommit är det att grundandet av F.T.O. i början av 1970-talet var förenligt med den Svenska kyrkan. Vi kan se i källorna att Ordens syfte och annat typiskt för Orden, korresponderar väl med vad som uttrycks gällande tro, lära och bekännelse i Kyrkolagen 1686 och de, förutom Bibeln, samlade bekännelseskrifterna för den Svenska kyrkan. Genom detta arbete konstaterar vi att ett ordensliv likt F.T.O. kan tillämpas inom ett evangeliskt-lutherskt kyrkosamfund och att det på intet sätt är synonymt med den gärningsfromhet inom klosterväsendet som reformatorerna så tydligt vände sig mot under medeltiden. / This study, in the subject the history of Christianity, present an order in the Church of Sweden, “Saint Francis Third Order within the Church of Sweden” (F.T.O.), which is a part of the “Third Order” (TSSF) within “The Society of Saint Francis” (SSF), a community within the Anglican Church, Church of England. The order is open for women and men, ordained (bishops, priests and deacons) and lay people who live ordinary lives in family and society, with a desire to live their lives inspired by Saint Francis and his life. My purpose with this study is to examine and describe the prime sources from the time of the foundation of the F.T.O. to answer the question about whether the foundation of the Order was compatible or not with the Church of Sweden, their faith, doctrine and confession. The examination starts with a descriptive part about the background to the study problem where I give some facts about the reformation and what that brings for the Church of Sweden in relation to monastery life. Then comes a description and a hermeneutics and a dogmatic analysis of the, for the time of the foundation of the Order, current sources. A summery of the upcoming results of this study is that at the foundation of F.T.O. in 1970ths was compatible with the Church of Sweden. In the sources we can see that the Orders purpose and other typical for the Order corresponds well with what they say about faith, doctrine and confession in the church law from 1686 and the, except the holy Bible, confession scripts for the Church of Sweden. Through this work we establish the fact that an order life like that we see in F.T.O. could practices in an evangelical-Lutheran church and it is not in any way synonymic with that phenomena called “action piety” within the monastery life that the men’s of the reformation so clearly said no to under the middle age.

This study takes its point of departure in the tradition of Christian women covering their hair for religious and cultural reasons, hereafter called veiling. The aim has been to investigate what ideas were projected onto the veil in Sweden during the 19th and 20th centuries, as well as when and how the tradition of veiling disappeared among most Christian Swedes. My definition of what constitutes a veil has little to do with the form of the head covering. If an item is used in the mean of covering women’s hair for religious or cultural, rather than practical reasons, then it is considered to be a veil.In his first letter to the assembly of Corinth (1 Cor. 11), the Apostle Paul advocates a veil as a sign of women’s subordination. He also states that women’s hair is a sign of honour and to have it cut would be a disgrace. In 19th century Sweden, it was tradition among the rural populations for women to have long hair, covered indoors as well as outdoors. The sources show that people were aware of the words in 1 Cor. 11 about female subordination and the veil as a sign thereof. Women’s hair became the means for an individual’s inner body to show its virtues via the outer, physical body.In the mid-1920s it became popular for young women to cut their hair short. By accentuating how the world had changed, short hair became a symbol of modernity. Within a decade short hair for young women became the norm all over the country. There were no significant protests of this from the Swedish Church, though free-churches with a more fundamentalist understanding of the Bible remained disapproving. As the century progressed women gradually appeared bare-headed in church. Paul’s words about subordination became considered as an Oriental influence rather than a divine command. By projecting the inequalities of the sexes as an ancient Oriental idea, the western society’s identity as modern and democratic could be asserted. Essentially, everyone agreed that Swedish Christian women were not veiled, nor ever had been, nor should be. Hence the tradition of veiling disappeared in the Swedish Church without much notice.In the more fundamentalist Swedish Pentecostal movement the hair itself began to carry the religious symbolism otherwise given to the veil. In this manner, the hair had indeed become like a veil, as Paul had written. Renouncing long hair was in the end a renunciation of Paul’s words and the hierarchical system assigned by God. Nevertheless, short hair for women eventually became accepted within the Swedish Pentecostal movement as well.

The present study deals with the encounter between the diocese of Luleå and the process of modernising. The main issue is individualism as a part of modern man’s identity. What kind of individualism was it, and how did it find expression in the diocese’s perspective on faith during the first half of the 20th century? A leading idea in the thesis is that the low church profile provided the diocese with a particular readiness to meet the demands of modern culture. The starting-point of the study is Philosopher Charles Taylor’s theory on the rise of modernity’s concept of freedom and perception of the self, which includes a justification of a positive side of modern individualism and a corresponding dismissal of a negative side. This attitude opens the door for the possibility of doing greater justice to the low church emphasis on the individual person. Taylor asks, from his moral-philosophical point of view, as well as the diocese of Luleå did, whether the Christian faith would have any future in modern culture. The low church view on faith becomes dynamic-extential as it dismisses a traditional metaphysical or theoretical explanation of God as a transcendent reality. Instead the subject is given vital importance. This apprehension reflects an influence from expressivism as a new form of consciousness, in protest against the science of the 17th that separated reason from both nature and feelings. This was inherent in the diocese via pietism. However, not an outspoken anthropology, the diocese nevertheless indicates that it considers man a linguistic and self-interpreting creature. This amounts to a more suitable view on the belief in modern culture, which no longer can rely on a commonly accepted belief in an inherent order of the world as an expression of God’s intentions and will. / digitalisering@umu

The Church of Sweden had barely 6.5 million members in 2012. Just over 1% of the members visit a church service regularly every Sunday. The number of visitors in worship services has diminished continuously for a very long time. From 1990 to 2010, the annual number of visitors at the main worship services has decreased by 50% from 9 million to about 4.5 million. The service activities can still be maintained at the current level because the many passive members still pays their membership fee. According to the national documents from the Church of Sweden the Sunday service is the most important mission. The purpose of this study was to analyze the relationship between the mission to celebrate divine worship as the official church gives local parishes and how this is perceived by the employees and the elected officials of the local parish. What are the similarities, differences and tensions between the mandate given by the Church of Sweden at the national level and the way performers perceive this? The study was based on three main documents: The Church Order for Church of Sweden (Kyrkoordningen), The theological basic principles for preparations for a new book of Common Prayer (2006), and the Explanations for the Proposal of the Book of Common Prayer. Part 1. Finally I analyzed the documentation (2011-2012) for preparation of the parish structural regulation on Northern Gotland. From these documents I formed 26 claims about the service that was presented to the informants in the attitude survey. The claims were then grouped into eight tentative quality dimensions for a "right celebrated worship", namely practical issues, faith, didactics, emotions, ethics, fellowship, diaconal issues and tradition. The empirical study was made in seven parishes in the North of Gotland. The informants were 34 employees and 40 elected officials. To this survey I added ten semi-structured interviews with the same groups. This study has essentially a religious sociological frame of reference. The main contribution of theories has been given by Grace Davie, Per Pettersson, Ole Riis and Linda Woodhead.  Davie analyzes North European churches which has or has had any ties to the State and where the majority of the population belongs to the Church, but very few members makes use of church services. Davie has described this in terms like "belonging without believing" or “vicarious religion”. Pettersson describes the relationship between the Church and the many members in service theoretical terms. He measures the quality of what the Church of Sweden offers as a service organization and from a theoretical perspective of this service. Riis and Woodhead have mainly contributed to this study through their theories about religion and emotions. The result of the study was that the elected officials were slightly more satisfied with the service as it is performed today compared with the employees. Overall, it was a surprisingly unanimous group that shall plan and develop the service. The elected officials emphasize the importance of parish church more than the employees while matters of faith are more important to the employees. The national documents often points to the importance of tradition. This ambition was not found in any of the groups in the study.

In times of social distancing and restrictions, ecclesiological challenges arise for the church as a room that under normal circumstances gather people for services. When the church cannot be used the way it is intended to, it raises questions about the functions of the room. The new corona virus pandemic is a crisis that challenges our perception of the church buildings’ functions and aspects. This thesis is a case study that took place in the Cathedral of Stockholm, also called Storkyrkan, during Holy week and Easter. The purpose of this thesis is to study what ecclesiological implications this new reality has on how co-workers and visitors make use of the room. Through observation of the room and interviews of visitors and co-workers I identify five aspects of Storkyrkan that characterize what functions a church building can have during a crisis. The study finds that through the circumstantial changes of the usage of the room, the materiality of it is amplified. It also shows that many types of people visit and use the room in various ways. They are all connected as a collective in a network through the words, artifacts, music, and practises that are a part of this space. Instead of closing due to the pandemic, Storkyrkan was an open room which generated possibilities for people to use it. In times of social distancing, when people are encouraged to stay away from each other, the church brought people together, though in a much smaller number. This happened both in the physical room and in the virtual room online. These are all sources of lived ecclesiology, which is understood through people’s lives and actions.

Diaconia research in the Nordic countries 2015-2019 This master thesis is a systematic literature review of the field of diaconal research in the Nordic countries during the period 2015 - 2019. I have conducted a Mixed Methods Research Synthesis on 134 selected titles, corresponding to the search protocol. Diaconia is sometimes defined as the social work or social care performed by the Christian church, but as my report shows, the concept of Diaconia can be defined in several ways, from narrow to wide delimitations. As a research field, Diaconia research is not clearly defined. One of the findings of my study is that Diaconia research draws from and contributes to ecclesiology, sociology and psychology of religion, systematic theology, church history and patristic studies. The main Nordic research site for diaconal studies is VID Specialized University in Norway. Other major contributors to the field are Uppsala University (CRS), Ersta Sköndal Bräcke University, University of Eastern Finland and MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society. My report shows recent developments in the theology of Diaconia, and makes visible differences and similarities in the understanding of the Deacon’s office in the Nordic majority churches. Deacons in Finland, Norway and Sweden struggle with similar challenges of mandate and responsibilities, which is shown by comparison between several referenced studies. These challenges appear to be connected to gender, a low over all appreciation of social care in society and church alike, and not the least, outdated theological interpretations of the Deacon’s office as humble or lowly service. Contributions from an international research project at University of Eastern Finland are aiming to correct some of these misunderstandings by retranslating texts from the patristic era. All in all, the referenced studies show, that diaconal works in the Nordic countries are making important contributions to society, expanding beyond the concept of care, engaging in theological development, social innovation, social mobilisation and interreligious cooperation. My study makes a theoretical contribution by adapting the concentric model for Diakonia developed by Erik Blennberger (1946 – 2018), based on this empirical finding.

No description available.

Inspired by Valerie DeMarinis quantitative study Pastoral care, existential health, and existential epidemiology: a Swedish postmodern case study (2003), and Peter Strang and Susann Strang’s research Questions posed to hospital chaplains by palliative care patients (2002) the aim of this quantitative research was to continue to investigate the field of Existential health and pastoral care. With the background of previous research within the field of Psychology of Religion and Existential health, this study also wants to direct attention to a group especially affected by the Covid-19 Pandemic: the group of old adults, living at retirement homes in Sweden. A group who, bound by the restriction orders, got isolated from their social surroundings outside their homes. By investigating priests and deacons in the Church of Sweden's perception of their relations and conversations with older adults before, during, and after the implemented Covid-19 restrictions, this study tries to answer the following research questions: (1) How has the expression of existential health, according to priests and deacons who work with old adults living at elderly centers, has been affected during the pandemic? (2) In what way has the relationship between the Church of Sweden and retirement homes gotten affected during the pandemic? By using DeMarinis theory on levels of health and existential information, (DeMarinis 2003:2008) a suggestion of categorisation of themes in pastoral care was created. The original themes in this study were based on DeMarinis survey posed to church chaplains (DeMarinis, 2003) and got categorized into seven head categories: (a) Loneliness, (b) Psychological themes, (c,) Identity-themes, (d) Social themes, (e) Existential themes, (f) Religious- and Spiritual themes, and (g) Fysical themes. The head categories were later used in the analysis. The material was collected through a survey, posed to priests and deacons within the Church of Sweden. The survey was sent by email to 644 parishes all across the country, and answered anonymously by 355 priests and deacons. By dividing the survey into four parts: (1) demographic information about the respondents, followed by repeated questions to (2) the time before the restraining orders (3) the time during the restraining orders, and (3) the time after the release of the restraining orders, the results came out as following: through all the time-periods loneliness was the most common theme, followed by Psychological themes. Identity-themes, such as life story, work, ageing, decreased during the times of restriction orders. In the same period of time, existential and religious themes got more common, especially themes that can be seen as negatory, such as depression, fear of death, God’s absence, suicidal thoughts. Regarding the relational question between the Church of Sweden and retirement homes, the respondents indicated a change in frequencies of contact, and places of contact. Before the pandemic, the majority of the respondents often had contact with older adults living at the retirement homes, usually in relation to the parish activities at the centers. With the restrictions 80% (N=350) had contact less than once a month, compared to before, 57,8% (N=351) had contact more than 2-3 times a month. Contact by phone got more common, and the contact depended on either staff at the elderly-center, relatives to the elderly, or the respondent during the restraining orders.

A sermon after a crisis or traumatic event requires great pastoral care. How do we put what happened into words? When things are so devastating that words are not enough? How do we speak about hope and despair in the midst of a crisis? This thesis aims to analyze sermons in the Church of Sweden after the attack on Drottninggatan, Stockholm, Sweden in 2017. Nine sermons held in the weeks following the attack have been analyzed. The theoretical background and theme of the analysis has been psychotraumatology and trauma-informed theology. The thesis’ process has been an inductive approach, as it begins in the material and then compares these against the selected aspects. The questions asked in the thesis are: “What qualities can be found in these sermons after the terrorist attack at Drottninggatan?“ As well as two sub-questions about the respective perspectives: “Which psychotraumatological perspectives were found in the sermons?” and “What perspectives of trauma-informed theology were found in the sermons?” The analysis of sermons and the answer to the first question resulted in five common themes: Responsibility and humanity, The terrorist attack and evil, The Bible and God, Despair and Hope. Based on this, both theoretical aspects have been used to analyze the results.

In 19th century Sweden women preached in the popular revival movements as they did in the other Nordic countries, in Great Britain and the United States. One of the most famous preachers in Sweden was Nelly Hall (1848–1916). Internal and external evidence of her public life is the main focus of the study, and in this way it seeks to uncover the origin of her inspiration and to specify her connection to the spiritual movements of the time, at the same time that it analyses the reception and the debate of women as preachers in the period when she was active. Nelly Hall studied at the Royal School for Women’s Higher Teacher Education and worked as a teacher for ten years before she decided to enter into the ministry of preaching. She was influenced by the Anglo-American Holiness movement and had close contacts with the Salvation Army in London. From 1883 she travelled in the southern parts of Sweden. Thousands of people listened to her and as part of her ministry she practised faith healing. She went on preaching tours to Finland, Norway, Germany and the United States. When the Swedish Holiness Mission started as a small mission society in 1887 it was to some extent a result of the preaching work carried out by Nelly Hall. She was elected a member of the first board and worked as a mission secretary for ten years. Around 1900 there was a shift in her theological thinking and she became more absorbed by apocalyptic ideas. In 1901 she went for the second time to the United States and lived there until 1916 when she died in Brockton, Massachusetts. Little is known about the last fifteenth years of her life. The ministry of Nelly Hall and other women raised considerable public interest and in the Swedish context her time of ministry coincided with the emerging movement for the emancipation of women. Many were against women preaching in public and the discussions often occurred in the press. Parts of these discussions as well as several pamphlets in favour of women’s preaching are analysed in this study. / <p>Contains a summary in English</p>