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2006

  • June 2006: Same-sex marriages

The issue of same-sex marriages is widely debated in Sweden at the moment. The Government has appointed the former Chancellor to give proposals concerning a "sex neutral" Matrimony Act. The ex-chancellor is expected to present his proposals in the beginning of 2007.

Sweden has today a Partnership Act – for homosexual couples – separate from the Matrimony Act, but marriage and partnership are in practice legally the same. The only difference today regards international effects. Most churches and other religious communities in Sweden have the right to officiate marriages. Partnership, though, can only be officiated by the authorities.

The standpoint of the Swedish churches and other religious communities differs. The Lutheran majority church, Church of Sweden, has since some years a statement of the bishops, which opens for the priests of the church to give blessings to same-sex couples. In some cases these "blessing acts" have come to be an "act of wedding". Last autumn, the Church of Sweden synod decided on an official blessing act for same-sex couples. The task was given to the Church Board to create the details of the act. The new act is planned to come into effect during the later part of 2006.
Several other churches, among them the Roman-Catholic Church and the Pentecostal Church, are strongly against any thought of same-sex "marriages". They have opposed against the Church of Sweden decision in the matter.
The churches are represented as an advisory group to the ex-chancellor. They will certainly make their different opinions known to him during his work.

  • March 2006: The Province of mission

Another current debate concerns the establishment of the "Province of Mission" (Sw. Missionsprovinsen). A number of members of the Church of Sweden, who can not accept the development in the church, i.e. with women priests and bishops, have started this organisation in order to be able to ordain priests, who are not willing to co-operate with women priests. Such men are nowadays not ordained within the Church of Sweden.
The members of the province themselves regard the province as an organisation within the Church of Sweden. The leaders of the Church of Sweden, on the contrary, have argued that the Province is to be seen as a new church.

The clash between the church and the province came when the province consecrated a province bishop. This person, a retired priest of the Church of Sweden, was then disordained by the church. The consecrating bishop, a Lutheran bishop from Kenya, until then a counselor to the Lutheran World Federation, was removed from this post by the federation. The reason was that he had interfered in another member church. Later, another priest in the Church of Sweden was disordained. He was the secretary of the province and had been very active in the establishment of the organisation.

D 2 October 2006    ALars Friedner

CNRS Unistra Dres Gsrl

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