Church of Sweden

Church of Sweden
Church of Sweden
Svenska kyrkan
	Arms of the Church of Sweden with its centred crown, representing both the victory of Christ over death and the crown of Erik the Holy, Patron Saint of Sweden.
Type	National church
Classification	Protestant
Orientation	Lutheran
Scripture	Protestant Bible
Theology	High church Lutheranism
Polity	Episcopal
Governance	General Synod
Primate	Martin Modéus
Associations	Lutheran World Federation; World Council of Churches; Conference of European Churches; Porvoo Communion;
Full communion	Philippine Independent Church; Union of Utrecht of the Old Catholic Churches; Episcopal Church (United States);
Region	Sweden
Headquarters	Uppsala, Sweden
Founder	Ansgar ; (According to tradition); Stefan of Alvastra; (First Archbishop of Uppsala, under the jurisdiction of the Roman Catholic Church); Gustav I of Sweden ; (Separated from the Holy See during the Swedish Reformation); Laurentius Petri Nericius ; (Consecrated as first Lutheran Archbishop of Uppsala in 1531. Author of the Swedish Church Ordinance of 1571);
Origin	1014, establishment of the first Swedish diocese, the Diocese of Skara; 1164, establishment of the Archdiocese of Uppsala 1536, separation from Rome through the abolition of Canon Law; 1593, adoption of the Augsburg Confession
Separated from	Roman Catholic Church (1536)
Separations	Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland (1809); The Mission Province (2003)
Congregations	1,288 in Sweden, 31 abroad (2023)
Members	5,426,053 2024 (51.4% of the total population)
Official website	svenskakyrkan.se
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The Church of Sweden (Swedish: Svenska kyrkan) is an Evangelical Lutheran church in Sweden. A former state church, it is a national church which covers the whole nation.

Headquartered in Uppsala, with around 5.4 million members in 2024, it is the largest Christian denomination in Sweden. A member of the Porvoo Communion, the church professes Lutheranism. It is composed of thirteen dioceses, divided into parishes. The Primate of the Church of Sweden, as well as the Metropolitan of all Sweden, is the Archbishop of Uppsala.

It is liturgically and theologically "high church", having retained priests, vestments, and the Mass during the Swedish Reformation. In common with other Evangelical Lutheran churches (particularly in the Nordic and Baltic states), the Church of Sweden maintains the historical episcopate and claims apostolic succession. Some Lutheran churches have congregational polity or modified episcopal polity without apostolic succession, but the historic episcopate was maintained in Sweden and some of the other Lutheran churches of the Porvoo Communion. The canons of the Church of Sweden states that the faith, confession and teachings of the Church of Sweden are understood as an expression of the catholic Christian faith. It further states that this does not serve to create a new, confessionally peculiar interpretation, but concerns the apostolic faith as carried down through the traditions of the church, as the Lutheran Reformation aimed at conserving the faith and traditions of the Church while removing what it saw as medieval innovations.

It was Sweden's state church until 2000. At the end of 2024, its membership of 5,426,205 included 51.4% of the Swedish population. This high membership is due largely to automatic membership, through 1995, for any newborn child of a church member whose membership was not rejected. Approximately 2% of the church's members attended regularly in 2010, when the membership was higher. A total of about 4% of the members were in attendance in a given week at that time.