The Oxford Movement and the early High Church spirituality in Sweden

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn the early twentieth century, Swedish priests went to England for pastoral studies. There they met the influential leaders of the Oxford Movement and were inspired by them. They discovered a Catholic, but not Roman Catholic, worship and High Church spirituality. They read Charles Gore, E.B. Pusey and others. Their great discovery was the eucharistic worship and its sacramentally orientated liturgy and the world-wide Catholic Church, a catholicity they recognised in the Church of Sweden. However, when they wanted to use their experience and visions in Sweden, they were accused of being ‘English importations’ of something strange and un-Swedish. This essay shows not only that this was not the case, but how they rejected such nationalist criticism. The Oxford Movement inspired them to dig in the Swedish field and there they found the Church’s common treasures − the Catholicity they had, which gave a concrete form to worship and parish life. For Gunnar Rosendal, the influential High Church pioneer in Sweden from the 1930s, this was absolutely fundamental.