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Church of Sweden

Also Known As Svenska kyrkan
Christianity

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Origin from 1527

The Church of Sweden is the Lutheran church of Sweden and was its state church until the year 2000. Its Reformation was gradual and administrative rather than sudden, running from the Diet of Vasteras in 1527, which put church property at the crown's disposal, to the Uppsala Assembly of 1593, which fixed the Augsburg Confession as the church's standard. It kept the historic episcopate and a good deal of the medieval liturgical form, which is why the Porvoo Communion could later bring it into full communion with the Anglican churches of Britain and Ireland.

Facts
Attributions
Church Family
Lutheran 1
Belief
Defining Doctrinal Position
Trinitarian: one God in three persons 1
Its own record ties its standard to the Augsburg Confession, matching Lutheranism, already carried as trinitarian.
Defining Doctrinal Position
Chalcedonian: two natures in the one person of Christ (Chalcedon, 451) 1
Its own record ties its standard to the Augsburg Confession, matching Lutheranism, already carried as chalcedonian.
Position on Sexuality
Same-sex marriage is performed and LGBT clergy are ordained on equal terms with heterosexual clergy 2
The Church of Sweden's General Synod voted, 176 of 249 voting members in favour, to let priests perform marriages for same-sex couples from 1 November 2009, extending a blessing-only practice the church had offered since 2007, with individual priests still free to decline. Weeks later, on 8 November 2009, Eva Brunne was consecrated Bishop of Stockholm, reported as the country's first openly homosexual bishop, in a civil union partnership with another woman, demonstrating that ordination to the church's highest office is not barred by a clergy member's own same-sex partnership.
Sexuality Position Detail
On 22 October 2009 the Church of Sweden's General Synod voted, 176 of 249 voting members in favour, to let priests perform marriages, using that word, for same-sex couples from 1 November 2009, aligned with civil marriage legislation in force since 1 May 2009 and extending a blessing-only practice the church had offered since 2007. Individual priests remained free to decline to perform such a ceremony. On 8 November 2009, weeks after the vote, Eva Brunne was consecrated Bishop of Stockholm at Uppsala Cathedral, reported as the country's first openly homosexual bishop, in a civil union partnership with another woman and together raising a three year old child. 2
Status
Status Today
Living tradition, practised today 1
History
Separation or Divergence
Ceased to be the state church of Sweden on 1 January 2000 1
Practice
Liturgical Language
The vernacular 1
Finances
Institutional Wealth or Finances
The Church of Sweden's own 2024 sustainable investments report states that its national-level investment assets, the funds managed centrally by the church nationally rather than by its thirteen dioceses, parishes and congregations, totaled 11,857 million Swedish kronor (roughly 1.1 billion US dollars) at the end of 2024, after a 10.0 percent return for the year. 5
Basis of the Wealth Figure
Audited Annual Report 5
Financial Disclosure Regime
The Church of Sweden publishes an annual report on its own national-level asset management, but the report explicitly states that asset management within its dioceses, parishes and individual congregations falls outside its scope, so no single published figure covers the church's total holdings nationwide. 5
Wealth Figure As Of Year
2024 5
Trajectory
Membership Over TimeSourced to the subject's own account
By 2025 membership had fallen to 5,365,542, 50.7 percent of the population, after automatic enrollment ended in 1996 and the church ceased being the state church in 2000. 3
Membership Over TimeSourced to the subject's own account
In 1972 the Church of Sweden counted 7,754,784 members, 95.2 percent of the Swedish population, near the high point produced by automatic membership for any newborn child of a member. 3
Membership Figure As OfSourced to the subject's own account
1972-01-01 3
Membership Figure As OfSourced to the subject's own account
2025-01-01 3
Basis of the Membership FigureSourced to the subject's own account
Church-Reported Rolls 3
Origins
Origin Period
from 1527 1
Its own record states its Reformation ran "from the Diet of Vasteras in 1527", distinct from its year-2000 disestablishment.
Origin Period
to 1527 1
Place of Origin
Sweden. 1
Founder
No single founder. Its Reformation proceeded gradually and administratively from the Diet of Vasteras in 1527 to the Uppsala Assembly of 1593, which fixed the Augsburg Confession as its standard. 1
States the gradual, administrative Reformation its own record describes; no single reformer is named.
Organisation
Governance
Episcopal: governed by bishops 1
OrdinationSourced to the subject's own account
Open to women and men 3
Relation to the State
Disestablished 4
The Church of Sweden was the country's established Lutheran state church from the sixteenth century Reformation under Gustav Vasa; a reform enacted by the Riksdag took effect on 1 January 2000, formally separating church and state, ending the church's constitutional establishment and the requirement that the monarch's government appoint its bishops, and leaving it a self governing national church funded chiefly by its own membership fee.
Giving
Standing Giving Expectation
Members of the Church of Sweden owe kyrkoavgift, a membership fee automatically withheld through the ordinary tax system; a member registered with the Church on 1 November owes the fee for the whole of the following year. The larger part of the rate is set locally by each parish council rather than nationally, so it runs from roughly 0.7 percent to just over 1 percent of taxable income depending on parish, with a national average for 2026 of about 1.05 percent. The obligation ends only when a member formally withdraws from the Church of Sweden; there is no lesser step that stops it. 6
How the Expectation Is Enforced
Codified Obligation With Consequences 6
Rule Established or Last Changed
2000-01-01 7
In Other Languages (21 names)
  • كنيسة السويد
  • Schwedische Kirche
  • Εκκλησία της Σουηδίας
  • Iglesia Sueca
  • کلیسای سوئد
  • Église de Suède
  • Gereja Swedia
  • Chiesa di Svezia
  • スウェーデン国教会
  • 스웨덴 교회
  • Zweedse Kerk
  • Kościół Szwecji
  • Igreja da Suécia
  • Церковь Швеции
  • Svenska kyrkan
  • คริสตจักรแห่งสวีเดน
  • İsveç Kilisesi
  • Церква Швеції
  • کلیسیائے سویڈن
  • Giáo hội Thụy Điển
  • 瑞典教會
Learn More
A Reformation Made by Diet and Assembly

The Swedish Reformation took most of a century and was carried out by legislation rather than by rupture. The Diet of Vasteras in 1527 put church property at the disposal of the crown and left the preaching of the gospel to be conducted purely, which is broad enough to have been read several ways at the time. Gustav Vasa needed the revenue and the reformers needed the opening, and both got what they wanted without anyone being required to say precisely what had changed.

Olaus Petri, who had studied at Wittenberg, produced the Swedish New Testament of 1526 and a Swedish mass in 1531. His brother Laurentius Petri became the first Lutheran archbishop of Uppsala and served for nearly forty years, and his church order of 1571 is the document that made the new arrangement work in practice. The complete Swedish Bible of 1541, the Gustav Vasa Bible, did for Swedish roughly what Luther did for German.

The settlement was fixed at the Uppsala Assembly of 1593, which adopted the unaltered Augsburg Confession, accepted the three ancient creeds, and rejected the return to Catholic practice that the reign of John III had made a live possibility. That assembly is the point Swedish Lutherans date their confessional identity from, and it was as much a political act as a theological one, since the heir to the throne was a Catholic.

Bishops, Porvoo, and the Parting From the State

What makes the Church of Sweden unusual among Lutheran churches is what it kept. The dioceses were not abolished and the bishops were not replaced by superintendents, so the church claims an episcopate continuous with the medieval one, and it retained a good deal of the older liturgical shape, vestments and ceremonial included. Uppsala remains the primatial see.

That inheritance had a consequence four centuries later. The Porvoo Common Statement, agreed in the early 1990s between the Anglican churches of Britain and Ireland and most of the Nordic and Baltic Lutheran churches, established full communion between them, with interchangeable ministries and mutual participation in episcopal consecrations. Sweden could enter it because it had something the Anglican side recognised, which churches that had let the succession lapse could only join by receiving it afresh.

The other modern change is constitutional. The Church of Sweden ceased to be the state church at the end of the year 2000, becoming a distinct legal body with its own governing structures, though it retains a special status in Swedish law and a very large nominal membership acquired mainly through infant baptism and inherited registration. Its own decision-making runs through a general synod elected in a national vote in which nominating groups, some of them tied to political parties, contest seats. Women have been ordained since 1960, and the first woman was elected archbishop in 2013.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Associated With

This source names Church of Sweden directly: "The English Wikipedia article on the Church of Sweden, community edited, carrying a membership statistics table sourced from the church's own official register, Svenska kyrkan i siffror (Church of..."

Source Church of Sweden (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names Church of Sweden directly: "Council of Churches's profile of the Church of Sweden, which ceased to be Sweden's state church at midnight on 31 December 1999 under the Church Ordinance that took effect 1 January 2000, ending..."

Source Church of Sweden (World Council of Churches)World Council of Churches

This source names Church of Sweden directly: "On Sweden, it records that since the 2000 disestablishment of the Church of Sweden, the Swedish Tax Agency collects a voluntary church fee for the Church of Sweden and, since a later government..."

Source Church Tax (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names Church of Sweden directly: "Its limit is that a claim about how individual Church of Sweden parishes actually balance the book's traditional and modern hymns in practice, as opposed to its authorized contents, needs a source..."

Source Den Svenska Psalmboken 1986 (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names Church of Sweden directly: "This article explains that although the Church of Sweden separated from the state in 2000, the Swedish Tax Agency (Skatteverket) still collects the church fee alongside ordinary income tax on the..."

This source names Church of Sweden directly: "A historical reference account of the Church of Sweden stating that the separation of church and state took effect on 1 January 2000, after which the Church could register as a faith community and..."

Belongs to Tradition

Branch Of

Lutheran, holding the Augsburg Confession as its doctrinal standard.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

Critiqued

Celibacy / Monasticism, Practices

Kept in the Church of Sweden, which retained the historic episcopate through the Reformation as few Lutheran churches did. The Augsburg Confession devotes two articles to this, one against compulsory clerical celibacy and one against monastic vows, and the monasteries of the Lutheran territories were dissolved.

Pilgrimage, Practices

Kept in the Church of Sweden, which retained the historic episcopate through the Reformation as few Lutheran churches did. Pilgrimage stands in the Augsburg Confession among the human traditions urged as though they merited grace, and is refused on that ground rather than as a custom.

Seven Sacraments, Practices

Kept in the Church of Sweden, which retained the historic episcopate through the Reformation as few Lutheran churches did. Lutherans count the sacraments by the presence of a command of Christ and a promise attached to an outward sign, which yields two, or three when absolution is counted.

Veneration of saints and Mary, Practices

Kept in the Church of Sweden, which retained the historic episcopate through the Reformation as few Lutheran churches did. The Augsburg Confession permits the remembrance of the saints as examples of faith and forbids their invocation, since Christ alone is the mediator.

Excluded from Canon

1 Esdras, Scriptures & Texts

The Church of Sweden does not include 1 Esdras in its Bible. Its canon follows the Lutheran Reformation's return to the thirty-nine books of the Hebrew Bible for the Old Testament, and 1 Esdras, read as scripture within Eastern Orthodoxy, falls outside that narrower list along with the rest of the deuterocanonical and apocryphal writings the Reformers set aside.

3 Maccabees, Scriptures & Texts

The Church of Sweden does not include 3 Maccabees in its Bible. Its Old Testament follows the Lutheran Reformation's return to the thirty-nine books of the Hebrew Bible, and 3 Maccabees, read as scripture within Eastern Orthodoxy, falls outside that narrower canon along with the rest of the deuterocanonical and apocryphal writings.

Psalm 151, Scriptures & Texts

The Church of Sweden does not include Psalm 151 in its Bible. Its Old Testament follows the Lutheran Reformation's return to the thirty-nine books of the Hebrew Bible, and Psalm 151, read as scripture within Eastern Orthodoxy and found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, falls outside that narrower canon along with the rest of the deuterocanonical and apocryphal writings.

Held Differently

Additions to Daniel, Scriptures & Texts

Not canonized, but retained. Luther gathered the deuterocanonical books into a separate Apocrypha section of his 1534 Bible, headed as not equal to Holy Scripture yet good and useful to read, and Lutheran Bibles have printed and read them there since.

Source An Introduction to the ApocryphaBruce M. Metzger
Additions to Esther, Scriptures & Texts

Not canonized, but retained. Luther gathered the deuterocanonical books into a separate Apocrypha section of his 1534 Bible, headed as not equal to Holy Scripture yet good and useful to read, and Lutheran Bibles have printed and read them there since.

Source An Introduction to the ApocryphaBruce M. Metzger
Book of Baruch, Scriptures & Texts

Not canonized, but retained. Luther gathered the deuterocanonical books into a separate Apocrypha section of his 1534 Bible, headed as not equal to Holy Scripture yet good and useful to read, and Lutheran Bibles have printed and read them there since.

Source An Introduction to the ApocryphaBruce M. Metzger
Book of Judith, Scriptures & Texts

Not canonized, but retained. Luther gathered the deuterocanonical books into a separate Apocrypha section of his 1534 Bible, headed as not equal to Holy Scripture yet good and useful to read, and Lutheran Bibles have printed and read them there since.

Source An Introduction to the ApocryphaBruce M. Metzger
Book of Tobit, Scriptures & Texts

Not canonized, but retained. Luther gathered the deuterocanonical books into a separate Apocrypha section of his 1534 Bible, headed as not equal to Holy Scripture yet good and useful to read, and Lutheran Bibles have printed and read them there since.

Source An Introduction to the ApocryphaBruce M. Metzger
Books of the Maccabees, Scriptures & Texts

Not canonized, but retained. Luther gathered the deuterocanonical books into a separate Apocrypha section of his 1534 Bible, headed as not equal to Holy Scripture yet good and useful to read, and Lutheran Bibles have printed and read them there since.

Source An Introduction to the ApocryphaBruce M. Metzger
Letter of Jeremiah, Scriptures & Texts

Not canonized, but retained. Luther gathered the deuterocanonical books into a separate Apocrypha section of his 1534 Bible, headed as not equal to Holy Scripture yet good and useful to read, and Lutheran Bibles have printed and read them there since.

Source An Introduction to the ApocryphaBruce M. Metzger
Prayer of Manasseh, Scriptures & Texts

Not canonized, but retained. Luther gathered the deuterocanonical books into a separate Apocrypha section of his 1534 Bible, headed as not equal to Holy Scripture yet good and useful to read, and Lutheran Bibles have printed and read them there since.

Source An Introduction to the ApocryphaBruce M. Metzger
The Apocrypha, Scriptures & Texts

Not canonized, but retained. Luther gathered the deuterocanonical books into a separate Apocrypha section of his 1534 Bible, headed as not equal to Holy Scripture yet good and useful to read, and Lutheran Bibles have printed and read them there since.

Source An Introduction to the ApocryphaBruce M. Metzger
Wisdom of Sirach, Scriptures & Texts

Not canonized, but retained. Luther gathered the deuterocanonical books into a separate Apocrypha section of his 1534 Bible, headed as not equal to Holy Scripture yet good and useful to read, and Lutheran Bibles have printed and read them there since.

Source An Introduction to the ApocryphaBruce M. Metzger
Wisdom of Solomon, Scriptures & Texts

Not canonized, but retained. Luther gathered the deuterocanonical books into a separate Apocrypha section of his 1534 Bible, headed as not equal to Holy Scripture yet good and useful to read, and Lutheran Bibles have printed and read them there since.

Source An Introduction to the ApocryphaBruce M. Metzger
Apostolic succession, Doctrines

The Church of Sweden kept the historic episcopate through a gradual Reformation, unlike most Lutheran churches, which is the ground on which the Porvoo Communion brought it into full communion with the Anglican churches of Britain and Ireland.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

Holds Element

Sung in Swedish and among the best known items of the national hymnbook, in a church that kept its bishops and much of its old ceremonial through the Reformation.

The Church of Sweden kept its bishops and its line of succession unbroken through the Reformation, which distinguishes it from most of the Lutheran world.

The cope is worn at high festivals and at ordinations, part of the medieval vesture the Swedish church retained.

The Church of Sweden retained both its dioceses and the historic succession of its bishops through the Reformation, which not every Lutheran church did.

The Church of Sweden kept the mitre and the crozier through the Reformation, so its bishops are vested as bishops were before it, which is unusual among the churches of the Reformation.

The Church of Sweden is governed by an elected church assembly, and its independence from the state was completed in 2000.

The Church of Sweden was among the founding member churches.

Wittenberg, Sacred Sites

The Swedish reformation was carried by men who had studied at the university in the town, and the connection is one of descent rather than of pilgrimage.

Objects and Practices of This Tradition

Kept in the Church of Sweden, which retained the historic episcopate through the Reformation as few Lutheran churches did.

Agnus Dei, Prayers

Kept in the Church of Sweden, which retained the historic episcopate through the Reformation as few Lutheran churches did.

Alla helgons dag, kept in Sweden on the Saturday falling between October 31 and November 6 rather than on November 1, and one of the most widely observed days in the Swedish year.

Kept in the Church of Sweden, which retained the historic episcopate through the Reformation as few Lutheran churches did. Almsgiving is treated as a fruit of faith rather than as a work that justifies, which is the whole of the Lutheran difference on the point.

Baptism, Rituals

Kept in the Church of Sweden, which retained the historic episcopate through the Reformation as few Lutheran churches did. Baptism is necessary to salvation and by it the grace of God is offered, and the Augsburg Confession condemns those who teach that children are saved without it.

Kept in the Church of Sweden, which retained the historic episcopate through the Reformation as few Lutheran churches did. Luther's instruction to remember one's baptism daily, drowning the old self and rising again, is the central Lutheran account of the Christian life.

Kept in the Church of Sweden, which retained the historic episcopate through the Reformation as few Lutheran churches did.

Kept from the Julotta, the dawn service of Christmas morning, which remains among the best attended services of the Swedish church year.

Kept in the Church of Sweden, which retained the historic episcopate through the Reformation as few Lutheran churches did. The churching of a mother was retained in the Lutheran church orders of the sixteenth century, stripped of any suggestion that she needed purifying.

Compline, Practices

Kept in the Church of Sweden, which retained the historic episcopate through the Reformation as few Lutheran churches did. Compline stands in the modern Lutheran books as the last office of the day.

Confession, Practices

Kept in the Church of Sweden, which retained the historic episcopate through the Reformation as few Lutheran churches did. Luther retained private confession and absolution and defended it in the catechisms, though the practice fell away in most Lutheran churches in favour of a corporate confession at the start of the service.

Confirmation, Rituals

Kept in the Church of Sweden, which retained the historic episcopate through the Reformation as few Lutheran churches did. Confirmation was kept as a rite of the church and denied the standing of a sacrament, since it has no command of Christ and no promise of grace attached to an outward sign.

Fasting, Practices

Kept in the Church of Sweden, which retained the historic episcopate through the Reformation as few Lutheran churches did. Fasting is kept as an outward discipline that prepares a person to receive the sacrament, and is expressly denied any merit before God.

Funeral Rites, Rituals

Kept in the Church of Sweden, which retained the historic episcopate through the Reformation as few Lutheran churches did. The burial office was retained, with the prayers for the dead removed and the promise of the resurrection put at the centre.

Gloria Patri, Prayers

Kept in the Church of Sweden, which retained the historic episcopate through the Reformation as few Lutheran churches did.

Holy Orders, Rituals

Kept in the Church of Sweden, which retained the historic episcopate through the Reformation as few Lutheran churches did. Ordination is to the one office of the ministry of word and sacrament, and no man may publicly teach or administer the sacraments unless he is rightly called to it.

Kept in the Church of Sweden, which retained the historic episcopate through the Reformation as few Lutheran churches did. Infants are baptised, and the Anabaptists are condemned by name in the Augsburg Confession for rejecting it.

Intinction, Practices

Kept in the Church of Sweden, which retained the historic episcopate through the Reformation as few Lutheran churches did. Intinction is practised in many Lutheran churches, though the ordinary manner is to receive the host and then the cup.

Kept in the Church of Sweden, which retained the historic episcopate through the Reformation as few Lutheran churches did. The liturgical colours were retained, along with vestments, the church year and the historic lectionary, on the ground that such things are matters of freedom and not of salvation.

Kept in the Church of Sweden, which retained the historic episcopate through the Reformation as few Lutheran churches did. The daily office was retained rather than abolished, reduced to Matins and Vespers and put into the language of the people.

Kept in the Church of Sweden, which retained the historic episcopate through the Reformation as few Lutheran churches did. Marriage is a civil estate blessed by the church rather than a sacrament, and Lutheran clergy marry.

Matins, Practices

Kept in the Church of Sweden, which retained the historic episcopate through the Reformation as few Lutheran churches did. Matins is kept in Lutheran service books, with the Benedictus as its gospel canticle.

Nunc Dimittis, Prayers

Kept in the Church of Sweden, which retained the historic episcopate through the Reformation as few Lutheran churches did.

Kept in the Church of Sweden, which retained the historic episcopate through the Reformation as few Lutheran churches did. Sunday is kept for the sake of good order and of hearing the word, and the Augsburg Confession denies that the observance rests on divine law.

Prayer, Practices

Kept in the Church of Sweden, which retained the historic episcopate through the Reformation as few Lutheran churches did. The Small Catechism teaches morning and evening prayer, grace at table and the Lord's Prayer as the shape of household devotion.

The Fraction, Rituals

Kept in the Church of Sweden, which retained the historic episcopate through the Reformation as few Lutheran churches did. The breaking of the bread stands in the modern Lutheran books as a distinct action of the rite.

Kept in the Church of Sweden, which retained the historic episcopate through the Reformation as few Lutheran churches did.

Kept in the Church of Sweden, which retained the historic episcopate through the Reformation as few Lutheran churches did. Lutherans keep the liturgical shape but drop the language of sacrifice, teaching that Christ is truly present in, with and under the bread and wine, a presence distinguished from both transubstantiation and a merely symbolic view.

Kept in the Church of Sweden, which retained the historic episcopate through the Reformation as few Lutheran churches did. The words of institution are the heart of the rite, and Lutheran theology locates the presence of the body and blood in Christ's own words rather than in a prayer of the church.

Vespers, Practices

Kept in the Church of Sweden, which retained the historic episcopate through the Reformation as few Lutheran churches did. Vespers is kept in Lutheran service books, with the Magnificat as its gospel canticle.

Sources
1. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised edition
F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.), Oxford University Press, 2005View the Source
2. Church of Sweden Says Yes to Gay Marriage (The Local Sweden)
The Local Sweden, 2009the stated position on sexuality and its supporting detailView the Source
3. Church of Sweden (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia contributors, Wikipedia, 2026View the Source
4. Encyclopaedia Britannica (online academic reference)
Encyclopaedia Britannica editors, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 2024View the Source
5. Sustainable Investments 2024
Church of Sweden (Svenska kyrkan), 2025View the Source
6. Kyrkoavgiften Skapar Mojligheter
Svenska kyrkan (Church of Sweden)View the Source
7. History of Church of Sweden
hhogman.seView the Source
The First Assembly of the World Council of Churches, Amsterdam 1948: Official Report
W. A. Visser 't Hooft (ed.), SCM Press, 1949
The Augsburg Confession
Philipp Melanchthon, 1530View the Source
Church Vestments: Their Origin and Development
Herbert Norris, J. M. Dent and Sons, 1949
The Creeds of Christendom, with a History and Critical Notes
Philip Schaff, Harper and Brothers, 1877View the Source
The Formula of Concord
Jakob Andreae, Martin Chemnitz, Nikolaus Selnecker and others, 1577View the Source
Together in Mission and Ministry: The Porvoo Common Statement
The Porvoo Conversations between the British and Irish Anglican Churches and the Nordic and Baltic Lutheran Churches, 1993the basis of full communion between the Nordic Lutheran and British and Irish Anglican churches
Sweden's First Lesbian Bishop Consecrated in Uppsala (The Local Sweden)
The Local Sweden, 2009the sexuality-position detail's account of Eva Brunne's consecrationView the Source
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