PREFACE

This booklet deals with the commissions of bishops, priests, and deacons in the Church of Sweden. The statement is directed both to present and future deacons, priests and bishops and to those who have or will be given various offices of trust in our Church. It aims to provide essential knowledge about the commissions which the ordained servants of the Church have. This matter concerns finally all who through baptism and faith belong to a fellowship where responsibility is shared so that all may have access to the gospel.

Discussions regarding doctrine are constantly taking place. It is therefore desirable that this booklet will be the object of further reflection. Discussion is needed about the commissions given to the ordained servants of the Church, their tasks and conditions of work, and their need of support through intercession, encouragement, and constructive critisism. In such discussion not only does understanding of their commissions increase but also understanding of the calling of all church members to ministry. It is vitally important for our Church that the baptized and the believing accept their spiritual responsibility.

Since the statement is concerned with commissions within the ministry of the Church, there is a chapter about the Church at the beginning. The description is not exhaustive but is limited to that which is relevant to the commissions of bishop, priest and deacon, as described in the following chapters. Since the statement concentrates on the ordained ministry of the Church, there is only a partial reference to the responsibility which rests on all others in the Church.

Terminology is discussed in various places. A few preliminary comments need to be made about this here. The ministry of the Church is one but it includes several commissions. For traditional reasons the term ministry is also used for commissions within the ministry. This, however, does not mean that the ministries of priest, bishop or deacon are here viewed as independent ministries. With regard to ordination for the diaconate, the Church of Sweden Service Book Part II uses the term ordination of deacon and deaconess and for the worship service the ordination mass for deacons . Whenever the term deacon is used in the following text, it denotes both women and men. The same obviously applies to the terms priest and bishop .

The document Präst i Svenska kyrkan (Priest in the Church of Sweden) was produced in 1982 by the Bishops’ Conference and the Union of Church Personnel to provide guidelines for the office of the priests. The Bishops’ Conference took the initiative of producing a corresponding document for the office of the bishop. Bishop Stig Hellsten already in 1982 wrote a rough draft, which was revised by Archbishop Olof Sundby on the basis of suggestions made by the Theological Commission of the Bishops’ Conference. In March 1989 Bishop emeritus Hellsten submitted a complete document to the Bishops’ Conference and its Theological Commission. The Bishops’ Conference had decided to wait for the outcome of the Church Synod of 1987, when new orders of consecration in the Church of Sweden were to be adopted. The Theological Commission of the Bishops’ Conference was then commissioned to produce a comprehensive document regarding the ministry of the Church. The members of the Commission are Bishop Martin Lönnebo, chairman, bishops Bengt Wadensjö och Jonas Jonson, professors Holsten Fagerberg, Birger Gerhardsson, Ragnar Holte och Per Erik Persson, and as secretary, the Counsellor to the Archbishop, Ragnar Persenius. The following were coopted as experts: Professor Lars Eckerdal, the then Church Secretary of the Church of Sweden, Carl Henrik Martling, the Director of the Swedish Evangelical Mission Birger Olsson, the Secretary for Planning Gunnar Edqvist and the former Director Inga Bengtzon. The Bishops’ Conference discussed the first draft at its meeting in January 1990. It was thereafter revised by Carl Henrik Martling and presented to the Bishops’ Conference in April. Individual bishops and members of the Theological Commission were given an opportunity to contribute ideas and the secretary of the Committee on Church Ordinance, Bertil Nilsson, was requested to scrutinize the proposal. A final proposal was thereafter drafted by Ragnar Persenius in his capacity as secretary to the Bishops’ Conference. At the meeting of the Bishops’ Conference 8th–10th October, 1990, the document was adopted in its final form.

For the Bishops’ Conference

Bertil Werkström

Archbishop