Word from Alsike Kloster

Alsike Kloster is a small nunnery within the Svenska Kyrkan, the (Lutheran)Church of Sweden, situated between Stockholm and the primatial see city of Uppsala. Sr Marianne Nordström, now an octogenarian and a redoubtable woman by all accounts, is the founder and superior of this small community of nuns. According to Dr William Tighe, Sr Marianne's foundation "has been a big support center for the ?orthodox opposition' in the Church of Swden, especially in the continued warfare over women's ordination since 1958."

In addition to being a center for orthodox opposition to the growing heterodoxy and heteropraxy in the Church of Sweden, Alsike Kloster has been a center and sanctuary for refugees and asylum-seekers, and was raided at least once in its recent history for harboring refugees.

The text of Sr Marianne's Eastertide letter follows.

Very dear Sisters and Brothers:

As this was written in EASTER WEEK but time has run on, we now want first of all to wish you a blessed and joyous PENTECOST in communion with our Risen Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ with whom we have once again celebrated His saving work in Holy Week, our baptism to his death and resurrection and now prepare to receive His Holy Spirit to maintain in us these saving events! Alleluja, alleluja, alleluja!

This year we had the privilege to insert a real baptism in our Easter Vigil when Nelo and his daughter Jennifer, victims of the civil war in Angola, were clothed in white and received into His Body, the Church. And at Pentecost the baby Milana from Kazakstan will also be baptized!

Secondly - as you might be interested to know about the consecration of the first bishop of the Missions province, the Right Reverend Arne Olsson, a former vicar and leader within the Lutheran Confederation, and as information of this event seems to have been very scarce outside Sweden we would like to give you some data.

It took place on February 5th in Gothenburg in the hall of the Schiller high school in the presence of a congregation of more than 600 priests and laypeople coming from all parts of Sweden.

The head consecrator was the Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Kenya, which has grown out of a Swedish mission enterprise in the 1940ties, the Right Reverend Walter Obare. With him was another Lutheran bishop of S.Africa, the Lutheran bishop of Belo-Russia Leonid Zviki, and several other bishops from Norway and Denmark (most of them with apostolic succession) as well as representatives of the Missoury Synod of Fort Waine [sic], the Klaipeda Seminary in Lithvia and the Paulus Synod of Finland.

After the consecration there was a short break for coffee and snacks, followed by High Mass and the ordaining of the three first priests of the Mission Province, two for Sweden and one for Finland by the new bishop. The services started at 12 and ended at 17.30. Reactions in the press and the other media were on the whole positive and well-informed.

The ritual was taken from the order of the consecration of bishops and priests in the Church of Sweden Manual from 1942 with the insertion of the question: Do you want this person (persons) as your bishop (priests)?, the congregation answering with a mighty: Yes!, which was very impressive.

The Missions Province was inaugurated last year after several years of discussions between representatives from the different traditional and biblical movements within the Church of Sweden, which have been deprived of having their candidates priested since the Clause of 1993, confirmed by the new Constitution of 2000, saying that candidates must be prepared to cooperate with women priests "in sacris". Other causes for dissension are the decision for women bishops in 1997 and the acceptance of same sex unions which is being proposed today.

Also the political bondage to the State was tightened rather than loosened by the same Constitution, which changed the character of our Church to that of a congregational body rather than an ecclesial with Episcopal jurisdiction.
The Missions Province according to its own Constitution is not a "continuing Church" but declares itself to be a free non-territorial diocese within the Church of Sweden with the hope of one day being accepted as such by the official Church. Its conception is that the Swedish Church is much larger than its present Constitution and has room for movements and institutions of different kinds, which are not regulated by Church Law. And the reasons for the interfering of bishop Obare to start off this new "diocese" which in its present form is nothing but such an ecclesial institution are best presented by he himself in his (enclosed) speech of introduction at the service of consecration.

Of course this step was received as a provocation by many in the official Church (the Missions Province having in vain tried to enter into dialogue with it), one of the first steps being to declare bishop Arne deprived of his priestly rights within his former diocese. A protest has been lodged against this verdict for juridical reasons. Also quite a few of our fellow organisations have expressed their fear that this step will create a split in the Church (which is already there as a fact!), although admitting that the ultimate cause is the unwillingness of the Church authorities to listen to the opposition.

Our community has joined the Mission Province as a koinonia, a free worshipping community, and sister Karin and I took part in this event as members of the affirming congregation. We were mightily impressed by the dignity, the catholicity and the weight of it all - with the feeling that at last we had stopped retreating and were for the first time since 1958 saying a firm "no" to a development which threatens to "unchurch" the ecclesia svecana to which we belong by right and by grace. According to its Constitution a koinonia can be part of an ordinary parish, so we are still members of the parish of Alsike and as such of the official Church of Sweden!

Thirdly we are happy to be able to announce that an appeal for amnesty for all the refugees in hiding (at least 10 000) has been launched by the Council of the Churches and the Muslim Confederation, called the Pascal Upprop (appeal)/Uppror(rebellion), to which many prominent people and politicians have subscribed as well as several political parties, with demonstrations and lists of names all over Sweden. There is also another appeal called "Refugee Amnesty now" for those who are less religiously minded! There is a certain political readiness for such a decision, as a new refugee procedure is to be started next year and the social-democratic party has the lowest numbers for years and a general election to face 2006.

Thanks to Todd Granger of  The Confessing Reader http://reader.classicalanglican.net

 who in turn thanks  Dr William Tighe, professor of history at Muhlenberg College, for passing Sr Marianne's newsletter along.

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