Religion in Sweden
Here are 10 takes on religion in Sweden – a mostly secular country where religion still has a role to play.
1. Separation of church and state
The Church of Sweden (Svenska kyrkan) is Evangelical Lutheran and has its secretariat in Uppsala, a city that has been the centre of religion in Sweden since the Middle Ages. The Church of Sweden has been separated from the state since 2000, which means that Sweden does not have an official state church.
Around 52 per cent of the Swedish population are members of the Church of Sweden. Record numbers of Swedes have left the church over the last couple of decades, and the membership numbers are likely to keep falling as young Swedes fail to take the place of older members. Surveys also indicate that a declining number of Swedes attend any religious services regularly.
2. The ritual role of religion
In many Swedes’ lives, religion and the church are most visible when traditional rituals or ceremonies are performed. Chief among these are christenings, marriages and funerals. The celebration of powerful Swedish cultural traditions such as Lucia can also include a church service and hymn singing.
The calendar reflects the religious heritage in Sweden, with many Christian holidays around the year. Though people rarely celebrate them by going to church, Twelfth Night (6 January, also known as Epiphany), Ascension, Pentecost and All Saints’ Day are each official public holidays in Sweden, as is the common collection of Easter days.
Like elsewhere in the West, Christmas in Sweden follows the Christian tradition and Advent is central to the Swedish festive period and the countdown to Christmas Eve. However secular modern-day Sweden may be, these holidays are certainly welcomed by religious and non-religious Swedes alike.
3. Secular Swedes
Rituals aside, Sweden is a highly secular nation and almost half of Swedes say that religion is 'not at all important', according to a survey by Pew Research Center. In the survey, only about two in ten Swedes said that religion was 'somewhat important' or 'very important', compared with, for example, seven in ten Americans.
Not all Swedes are comfortable with the at times prominent cultural role of the church either, and many people pursue alternative, non-religious forms of ritual. For example, the Church of Sweden only officiates about 25 per cent of weddings today. In 1970, that figure was 80 per cent.
There are also non-religious ‘name-giving’ ceremonies (namngivningsceremonier) for infants, with the aim of celebrating the arrival of a new child without the religious overtones of a christening.
4. Other big religions in Sweden
While membership of the Church of Sweden is declining, recent years have seen the membership of other churches and religions increase. Please note, however, that reported numbers on religious affiliations in Sweden are estimates only, since Swedish law forbids the registration of people on the basis of their religion.
Next to the Church of Sweden, the most prominent Christian churches are the Free Churches (frikyrkor). The Free Churches are also Protestant but independent of the Church of Sweden. They are characterised by Evangelical, Pentecostal, Methodist and Baptist elements.
Sweden's Jewish community consists of 15,000–20,000 people, according to estimates. The Jews are one of Sweden's five official national minorities and Yiddish one of the officially recognised minority languages.
Today, Muslims make up the largest non-Christian religious group in Sweden.
Increased immigration has contributed to greater religious diversity overall. The Catholic Church in Sweden reports increased membership and cites immigrants as a primary source. And then there are many country-specific Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches, of which the Serbian Orthodox and the Syrian Orthodox are the largest.
Skara Cathedral, with roots in the 11th century. Photo: Per Pixel Petersson/imagebank.sweden.se
The Gothenburg Synagogue was inaugurated in 1855. Photo: Sofia Sabel/imagebank.sweden.se
Swedes used to be initiated into the Lutheran Church through confirmation. In 2022, less than one-fifth of 15-year-olds were confirmed. Photo: Simon Paulin/imagebank.sweden.se
Skara Cathedral, with roots in the 11th century. Photo: Per Pixel Petersson/imagebank.sweden.se
The Gothenburg Synagogue was inaugurated in 1855. Photo: Sofia Sabel/imagebank.sweden.se
Swedes used to be initiated into the Lutheran Church through confirmation. In 2022, less than one-fifth of 15-year-olds were confirmed. Photo: Simon Paulin/imagebank.sweden.se
Skara Cathedral, with roots in the 11th century. Photo: Per Pixel Petersson/imagebank.sweden.se
The Gothenburg Synagogue was inaugurated in 1855. Photo: Sofia Sabel/imagebank.sweden.se
Swedes used to be initiated into the Lutheran Church through confirmation. In 2022, less than one-fifth of 15-year-olds were confirmed. Photo: Simon Paulin/imagebank.sweden.se
5. Judaism in Sweden
When Jews started settling in Sweden at the end of the 17th century, Sweden demanded that they convert to Christianity, more specifically Lutheranism. Then, at the end of the 18th century, a Jewish man named Aaron Isaac came to Sweden from Germany. Isaac went on to found a Jewish congregation in Stockholm. In 1870, Sweden granted Jews full civil rights.
During the 20th century, many Jews came to Sweden from Russia, Germany, Norway, Denmark, Hungary, former Czechoslovakia and Poland. In 1951, Sweden implemented freedom of religion, which meant that Jews no longer needed to be members of a Jewish community.
Today's Jewish congregations and synagogues include the three main branches of Western Judaism: Reform, Conservative and Orthodox.
6. Islam in Sweden
Ever since the middle of the 20th century, the number of Muslims in Sweden has grown, mainly through immigration. Among the most important regions of origin for people with Muslim backgrounds are south-east Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and the Horn of Africa.
Today, some ten different Islamic faith organisations exist on a national level, along with several hundred local congregations throughout Sweden. These organisations and congregations include a wealth of different confessional and theological branches – among them Shia, Sunni, Ahmadiyya and various Sufi branches.
There are some purpose-built mosques in Sweden, but also many other places of prayer, so-called basement mosques.
7. Church finances and faith support
To help finance its international and domestic activities, the Church of Sweden levies a fee (kyrkoavgift) on its members. The fee currently averages around 1 per cent of members’ income. The church’s spending priorities include maintaining and renovating the around 3,700 church buildings belonging to it throughout Sweden
The Church of Sweden has assets of SEK 49 billion (as of 2023), mostly buildings and land. In keeping with the Swedish practice of transparency and openness in public organisations and institutions, the public can scrutinise the activities and finances of the Church of Sweden in its Annual Report (pdf, only in Swedish).
Other faith communities can receive state support to help with their finances. The Swedish agency for support to faith communities (Myndigheten för stöd till trossamfund) is a government authority that provides financial help to faith communities other than the Church of Sweden. The aim of this support is to help faith groups ensure the sustainability of their activities and services.
8. The Church of Sweden and equality
In 1960, the first women priests were ordained in the Church of Sweden. Today half of the priests are women, and women make up the majority of those studying to become priests. And between 2014 and 2022 the archbishop – i.e. the chief representative of the Church of Sweden both nationally and internationally – was Antje Jackelén, the first woman in Sweden to hold that post.
Equality is a cornerstone in Sweden. And the Church of Sweden has often accompanied liberal social change rather than obstructing it. For example, in 2009 Sweden legalised same-sex marriage and the church decided to begin performing same-sex marriage ceremonies the same year.
9. From Nordic gods to Catholic converts…
The beginning of the religious experience in Sweden is often traced back to pre-Christian Norse religion. Norse beliefs formed the basis not for an organised religion, but rather for an overarching cultural system.
Central to the practice of Norse beliefs were ‘rites’, among them the ritual sacrifice of animals, and sometimes even humans! At these gatherings, people shared food and drinks in communion with the gods and sought omens for greater prosperity. Odin and Thor, probably the most well-known Norse deities, were the gods responsible for the likes of war and the sky, respectively.
Norse beliefs persisted until the 12th century, and Sweden was the last Scandinavian country to be Christianised by Catholic missionaries. In 1164, it became a so-called ecclesiastical province of the Catholic Church and Catholicism became firmly established.
Sweden contributed its fair share of saints, with Saint Bridget of Sweden being the most famous. Swedes even participated in their own versions of the famed Catholic Crusades by embarking on various expeditions to Christianise Finland and the Baltic states.
10. … and from Protestant pre-eminence to religious freedom
While Swedes may have become conscientious Catholics by the Late Middle Ages, the country would later become known as a bastion of Protestantism. Sweden completed its transformation from Catholic to Protestant by the end of the 1500s.
During the subsequent period, the state identified itself closely with the new Lutheran religion and punished deviation from state-sanctioned beliefs. Until 1858, people who converted to Catholicism could be punished by exile. In the 1600s, Swedish King Gustav II Adolf even led Sweden to war in the Thirty Years’ War in Germany, ostensibly to defend the Protestant faith.
Despite this draconian past, Sweden has become a country that today favours religious freedom. Since 1951, freedom of religion has been enshrined in Swedish law and studies have shown that in today’s Sweden a strong majority answer believes that everyone should have the right to practise their religion freely.
Traditional yet new-thinking, secular yet religious, tolerant yet challenging – it all holds true for Sweden.
