Catholicism in Scandinavia

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A few hours ago I came upon a picture of a High Church Lutheran church, and as my mind started to wander as I sat at my computer, bored out of my mind, I began to wonder about the demographics of Scandinavia.

Contrary to what we’re all taught in lyceum or high school, Catholics in northern Germany did not all seem to convert to Lutheranism or Calvinism, and Protestantism did make its way into southern Germany and Austria. Likewise, even into the present day, some Catholics survived in England and Scotland, with the most famous example probably being the Dukes of Norfolk. I even believe that some English Catholic families survived in Maryland, although not many at all seemed to. All of this got me to wondering, did pockets of Catholicism survive in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland, and if so, did the native Catholic population survive to the present day? Finally, if there are Catholics that survived the Reformation still in existence, are there any on this site?
 
Kosta said:
A few hours ago I came upon a picture of a High Church Lutheran church, and as my mind started to wander as I sat at my computer, bored out of my mind, I began to wonder about the demographics of Scandinavia.

Contrary to what we’re all taught in lyceum or high school, Catholics in northern Germany did not all seem to convert to Lutheranism or Calvinism, and Protestantism did make its way into southern Germany and Austria. Likewise, even into the present day, some Catholics survived in England and Scotland, with the most famous example probably being the Dukes of Norfolk. I even believe that some English Catholic families survived in Maryland, although not many at all seemed to. All of this got me to wondering, did pockets of Catholicism survive in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland, and if so, did the native Catholic population survive to the present day? Finally, if there are Catholics that survived the Reformation still in existence, are there any on this site?
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I think pockets of Catholicism did survive in some parts of Scandinavia. In the case of Norway though I recall reading that the Catholic Church disappeared entirely in the 18th century, only to be refounded there in the 19th century by immigrant communities.

In far-northern Scandinavia, the region that in English we still call Lapland, paganism persisted until Lutheran missionaries converted the natives (and Lutheran colonists from southern Scandinavia arrived), so there has never been much of a Catholic presence there.
 
Im from sweden and i am a convert.
No, there did not survive any catholic families in sweden, it was forbidden to be catholic after the reformation and king Gustav Vasa forbade catholicism, all who didnt convert to protestantism had to flee the country to Poland since to be catholic was under pain of Death.

From year 1860 it was finaly allowed again to be a catholic in sweden, although, the Law still says that the king must be a confessing protestant, so the king has not really freedom of religion, if he converts to any other religion he must abdicate.
 
Sorry, I don’t know how to just follow this without posting. I am intensely interested in this, regarding especially, Norway and Denmark. Also, Germany and record changeovers and difficulties attaining documentation (also name changes after leaving the country) for those, especially nobility (possibly HRE), who had converted to Lutheranism (or any of the plethora of rebellious groups) between the 1400’s -1700’s…
 
Apparently Finland is the most non-Catholic country in Europe, with only a few thousand Catholics. Many of them are Polish immigrants.
 
Interesting topic.

To the Swedish poster - Do you know the reason that Catholicism was so completely overtaken by the reformation in Scandinavia as opposed to Catholics and Protestants surviving alongside each other (as in the case with Germany)?

I’m also intrigued by the Scandinavian Stave Churches, and I read that many of them were destroyed over the centuries. Were these originally Catholic?
 
anjoh66 said:
Im from sweden and i am a convert.
No, there did not survive any catholic families in sweden, it was forbidden to be catholic after the reformation and king Gustav Vasa forbade catholicism, all who didnt convert to protestantism had to flee the country to Poland since to be catholic was under pain of Death.

From year 1860 it was finaly allowed again to be a catholic in sweden, although, the Law still says that the king must be a confessing protestant, so the king has not really freedom of religion, if he converts to any other religion he must abdicate.
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Thanks for the information.
Waving over to Sweden 🙂
Mary.
 
lerapt78 said:
Interesting topic.

To the Swedish poster - Do you know the reason that Catholicism was so completely overtaken by the reformation in Scandinavia as opposed to Catholics and Protestants surviving alongside each other (as in the case with Germany)?

I’m also intrigued by the Scandinavian Stave Churches, and I read that many of them were destroyed over the centuries. Were these originally Catholic?
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King Gustav Vasa was in need of the wealth that the Church had gathered so he forbade catholicism and seized the wealth of the Church and United the country under one king.

He had much to gain on this, there had never been only one single ruler of sweden Before so he United the peasants and fought the danes back, when the danish king lost South of sweden it was the beginning of the decline of denmark and the beginning of sweden as a new super Power according to the measures of that time.

This wiki article has good information about king Gustav Vasa.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_I_of_Sweden
 
Aelred_Minor said:
I think pockets of Catholicism did survive in some parts of Scandinavia. In the case of Norway though I recall reading that the Catholic Church disappeared entirely in the 18th century, only to be refounded there in the 19th century by immigrant communities.

In far-northern Scandinavia, the region that in English we still call Lapland, paganism persisted until Lutheran missionaries converted the natives (and Lutheran colonists from southern Scandinavia arrived), so there has never been much of a Catholic presence there.
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Thank you all for your responses.

I’m really surprised that governments of Denmark-Norway and Sweden (plus Finland) were the most effective at doing away with Catholics. I remember when I read about the Church of Finland and how some of the Karelians and Saami were Orthodox and how the Lutheran state pushed back against them, but I’m sure I’m not alone when I say that Scandinavia to me did not come to mind when I thought about the least tolerant and most brutal of the states of Early-Modern Europe.

I’m shocked that a region that has such a low population density wouldn’t have crypto-Catholics that could survive to the present day, let alone at least to the 1800’s. I remember that about a year ago, I read a short story with a Norwegian Jesuit, and when I had done research, all I could find was a comparison between how the Kingdom of Denmark-Norway coerced holdover Catholics into Lutheranism with how the Church of England was heavy-handed in Ireland and did not effectively give the Irish any incentive to convert. I wish I could remember that article now.

My last two thoughts are that I’m surprised that (as far as I have read, which is not quite a lot) priest’s holes were only found in England, Scotland, and Wales. I’d have thought that in this region, they’d be incredibly effective. Also, the Queen of Sweden, Christina of the House Vasa, secretly brought in Jesuits. Had Jesuits been in Sweden and the rest of the north in secret before?
 
Kosta said:
Also, the Queen of Sweden, Christina of the House Vasa, secretly brought in Jesuits. Had Jesuits been in Sweden and the rest of the north in secret before?
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Most probably not since there was only 72 years between the reign of Gustav Vasa and Queen Christinas reign.

She abdicated when she was about to convert to catholicism, although the official reason was that she abdicated because she was a woman and not fitting to ride a horse and lead the country in war.

It is against the constitutional law for a Ruler of sweden to be anything else than a Lutheran, and this still applies even to this day even though the king has no power anymore.

On the other hand this is only a formality since the king should also according to the same law from 1809 condemn the heresies of the arians, the eunomians and the muslims, which is not done this day anymore, maybe this law will be subject for revision soon.
 
I am also a Swede and I would like to add that it was forbidden for Swedish Catholics to become doctors, nurses and teachers all up until the 1950s. Parts of my family converted already back then (while living in Italy) but it was and still is far from common. Most of the Catholics here are immigrants, and very few of us are converts.

Our culture has a very complex relationship to the Church. The so called reformation was not well received among the people and we have so many martyrs from this time, you could never imagine. The love of Mary, pilgrimages etc. continued for a long time and our kings and our government has been very strong in their anti-catholic propaganda. We have been told that we are special - more civilized and more intelligent than the primitive people of the south. I still remember from my childhood how my teacher and my text books basically taught me that fr. Luther was a hero…
 
anjoh66 said:
Most probably not since there was only 72 years between the reign of Gustav Vasa and Queen Christinas reign.
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Hello Anjoh! Great to see other Swedes here!

I think you are wrong on this one though. Did not King Johan III (John III in English) invite the Jesuits to Sweden? I was taught that this resulted in Liturgia Svecanae Ecclesiae, a mixture of Lutheran and Catholic liturgy. Later on the papal diplomat Antonio Possevino also came here, and King Johan III was even about to convert if it had not been for his demands that the Catholic Church would give out communion under both kinds and celebrate Mass in the local language…

Yours,
Nils
 
Kosta said:
Thank you all for your responses.

I’m really surprised that governments of Denmark-Norway and Sweden (plus Finland) were the most effective at doing away with Catholics. I remember when I read about the Church of Finland and how some of the Karelians and Saami were Orthodox and how the Lutheran state pushed back against them, but I’m sure I’m not alone when I say that Scandinavia to me did not come to mind when I thought about the least tolerant and most brutal of the states of Early-Modern Europe.

I’m shocked that a region that has such a low population density wouldn’t have crypto-Catholics that could survive to the present day, let alone at least to the 1800’s. I remember that about a year ago, I read a short story with a Norwegian Jesuit, and when I had done research, all I could find was a comparison between how the Kingdom of Denmark-Norway coerced holdover Catholics into Lutheranism with how the Church of England was heavy-handed in Ireland and did not effectively give the Irish any incentive to convert. I wish I could remember that article now.

My last two thoughts are that I’m surprised that (as far as I have read, which is not quite a lot) priest’s holes were only found in England, Scotland, and Wales. I’d have thought that in this region, they’d be incredibly effective. Also, the Queen of Sweden, Christina of the House Vasa, secretly brought in Jesuits. Had Jesuits been in Sweden and the rest of the north in secret before?
Click to expand...
I suspect that the low population density, or low population in general rather, was a factor in the success the Scandinavian states had in suppressing the Church, compared to more densely populated areas like England or northern Germany. Also, unlike Britain and Germany, Catholicism had only been widespread in Scandinavia for about five hundred years before the Reformation, compared to nearly a thousand years in Britain and Germany, so it was less deeply rooted. Also Scandinavia is more physically remote from centers of Catholic activity like France, so it makes sense if there were fewer Jesuits and so forth entering those countries and working to keep the Faith alive.
 
Nils said:
I am also a Swede and I would like to add that it was forbidden for Swedish Catholics to become doctors, nurses and teachers all up until the 1950s. Parts of my family converted already back then (while living in Italy) but it was and still is far from common. Most of the Catholics here are immigrants, and very few of us are converts.

Our culture has a very complex relationship to the Church. The so called reformation was not well received among the people and we have so many martyrs from this time, you could never imagine. The love of Mary, pilgrimages etc. continued for a long time and our kings and our government has been very strong in their anti-catholic propaganda. We have been told that we are special - more civilized and more intelligent than the primitive people of the south. I still remember from my childhood how my teacher and my text books basically taught me that fr. Luther was a hero…
Click to expand...
This is a strange and amusing thought. 😉
 
Aelred_Minor said:
I suspect that the low population density, or low population in general rather, was a factor in the success the Scandinavian states had in suppressing the Church, compared to more densely populated areas like England or northern Germany. Also, unlike Britain and Germany, Catholicism had only been widespread in Scandinavia for about five hundred years before the Reformation, compared to nearly a thousand years in Britain and Germany, so it was less deeply rooted. Also Scandinavia is more physically remote from centers of Catholic activity like France, so it makes sense if there were fewer Jesuits and so forth entering those countries and working to keep the Faith alive.
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Is that why the High Church phenomenon within Lutheranism is strongest in Sweden?

Edit: Whoops, I quoted the wrong person! I’ll fix that momentarily.
 
Aelred_Minor said:
This is a strange and amusing thought. 😉
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Haha yes but I really believe that has been the unspoken attitude of many Swedes. Lutheranism has grown to become a huge part of our patriotism and devotions to Mary and the Saints, the use of sacramentals and holy pictures etc. has largely been viewed as unbiblical and something that is there for illiterate Spanish farmers and their like… The Cathechism of Luther was mandatory school material and you even had to learn it by heart all up until 1919.

The same condescending attitude is still there somehow, although today any form of religion would be considered superstition, not just “papism”…
 
Nils said:
Hello Anjoh! Great to see other Swedes here!

I think you are wrong on this one though. Did not King Johan III (John III in English) invite the Jesuits to Sweden? I was taught that this resulted in Liturgia Svecanae Ecclesiae, a mixture of Lutheran and Catholic liturgy. Later on the papal diplomat Antonio Possevino also came here, and King Johan III was even about to convert if it had not been for his demands that the Catholic Church would give out communion under both kinds and celebrate Mass in the local language…

Yours,
Nils
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Hi Nils!

It is very possible that you are right about this issue, i overlooked that in my answer and stand corrected for that.
 
Shall we be so brash, so very ‘uncivilized’, so superstitious, as to pray for an irrefutably big miracle to occur in front of nonbelievers in Sweden? 🙂

My warped sense of humor would want something like: the throne disappears and is replaced with a Catholic crucifix…leaving the king sitting on the floor and the gleaming crucifix rising upward to heaven…
 
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