In our secular age many people find it hard to understand the important role religion and church have played and still play for individuals and for the life of a whole district. It gave light to a hard-working day. The many festivals gave leisure time and opportunity to be together. The church gave support and help of different kinds. It gave rules and responsibility and also material help to poor and needy people. In time of crises the priest gave consolation and sometimes even medical help.

The church even had international contacts and a view of what happened in the rest of Europe. During The Middle Ages the church was universal. The holy texts which were read on Sundays were common for many countries in Europe.

This and much more the church of Bälinge signified for the people during the thousand years the play covers. The twenty-one (21) scenes are an attempt to bring this to remembrance and give short cross-sections of the history of the church and the district.

The last scene will unite the past with the future. In scene 3 the priest carries the new plate for the sacramental bread into the church and in the last scene the priest tells the audience that the same plate has been used at every communion since that time.

The archbishop of Sweden resides in Uppsala but for 400 years, until 1922, the person holding this office also was the vicar of Bälinge.

Most of the music in the play is composed by people from Bälinge but the choir also sings hymns from other ages. For instance, in scene 5 they sing Gaudeat eximiis, in scen 7 Laudate omnes gentes and in scene 8 The hymn of Saint Birgitta - Rosa rorans bonitatem. In scene 12 you can hear autentic "horseman-signals" from Gustav II Adolf´s age and when the Bälinge company goes off to war with Karl XII, in scene 15, The March of Narva by Andreas von Düben is played. At times during the play, our organist will play music on our organ from the 17 th century.

In the play all actors are amateurs and all of us are from the district. All the dresses are authentic and made by women here in Bälinge.

Great men from Bel (Bälinge) serve as offering priests. They are talking about the spring at the court site which today is Tingstukällan. The people offer to the Aesir Thor, Woden and Frej.

The trial is over and the chieftain and his men come riding to tell the people that they have decided to build a church at the old offering place. Many people do not like the decision to leave the Aesir cult for Christianity.

The first vicar tells the people that the new church shall be like the temple in Jerusalem. Building journeymen from France shape the new church. The vicar carries and shows the new plate for the sacramental bread. The plate is made in pure silver.

The farmers had to help build the church, for instance carry bricks and timber. An obstinate farmer has a nightmare about Woden´s ravens and a bad harvest. He has to pay a fine by the parish council. AIl the people enter the new church, the women to the left and the men to the right, singing a hymn: Jesus Christ is our health.

The audience take their seats, the women on the left side of the aisle and the men on the right side. A family from a hamlet far from the church comes to have their son baptized. His name is Hemming. This boy became a bishop in Åbo, Finland as a grown-up. At this time there were lots of wolfs in the forests and the people feared them.

The priest teaches the farmers how to cultivate. The farmers are very upset about that. S:t Erik's relics are carried through the church and a medieval hymns is sung. It will brings to remembiance times when the holy shrine was carried over their fields for giving good harvest.

The church will be decorated with paintings. Albertus Pictor himself, a great painter of that time, describes his pictures which hang on the walls.

The archdeacon, Kurt Rogge, who also is a vicar in Bälinge, tells the congregation that he has been nominated to bishop in Strängnäs (a town about 100 kilometers from Uppsala). He gives

as a farewell-gift a triptych (a kind of altarpiece) and here the figures liberate from the altar- piece and come forward on stage. The central figure are the Virgin Mary and the Infant Jesus.

The farmers complain about the tithes and the duties that the nobility has determined. The chaplain calls for law aud order and reports that the nobility's soldiers have tried to poison the archbishop's well.

King Gustav I, called Gustav Vasa, needs money for his many wars. Among other things he ordered that church bells should be given to the State. In this scene the soldiers take one of the church bells. They also took one from Jumkil's church. It is winter and during the transport to Stockholm the ice breaks and the bells go down through the ice.

Archbishop Laurentius Petri Gothus goes up into the pulpit. He tells the people about the martyrs on the altarpiece. In the past it was in the Cathedral in Uppsala. It will remind us about worried and poor people. From now on (the 16th century) the evangelical archbishop was vicar in Bälinge and was supported by the parish of Bälinge. This situation existed until 1922.

Young men will be entered as soldiers in king Gustav II Adolf´s war (30 years) in Germany. A military horn emits a warning - and the church is struck by lightning and begins burning.

At last the peace with Germany comes in 1648 and the new Bible from 1618 is shown. The church "becomes" a chandelier from queen Kristina and the choir models it with candles and everyone sings a hymn from that time.

You can see witches emerging on several places in the church, singing about witchcraft and medical herbaceous plants and so on. The priest curses them!

The Bälinge company takes part in Karl XII´s war. The Swedish king Karl XII was at war during most of his reign. Women, children, older persons and persons with handicaps of various types were left in Sweden. A young woman says goodbye to her husband. She receives a message about her husband, stating that be has probably died. She decides to marry a new man and the wedding begins - and gets a dramatic ending - her first husband is coming back.

The Swedish queen, Ulrika Eleonora, visits the church 1734. She gives rich gifts; a chasuble embroidered with gold thread, a cloth for the altar, also in gold, and a cloth for the sacramental chalice embroidered in gold and silver. Mrs. Margareta Clo, from a very fine family, gives a chasuble to the church.

Archbishop Benzelius is dead and his remains shall be buried in the church of Bälinge. A verger is alone in the church, preparing for the funeral, and he speaks about the good archbishop who was so attached to Bälinge. He had also been with king Karl XII in Russia and Turkey and he had given two beautiful candleholders in silver to the church.

The archbishop reconsecrates the church in 1788. The church is now a cross shaped church in baroque. The new organ is played. It was made 1632 for the Grand church in Stockholm and was now given to Bälinge parish.

The scene begins with a well known song which often was sung at revivalist meetings. It begins: Let me hear about Jesus, write every word in my heart. Sing for me the dear song, the fairest song here on earth. During the 19th century the revival advanced in Sweden and even in Bälinge. The merry and inspiriting songs devided the otherwise so united farmer families. Many people thought that it was much easier to understand what the minister said in the meeting house than what the vicar preached in church. The archbishop Sundberg condemns the revival from the pulpit.

A hymn is being sung. "The church of the father's in Sweden, dearest among congregations on earth" and the choir enters the sanctuary. Archbishop Nathan Söderblom bids farewell to the Bälinge parish. The prebend had now ended and the year is 1922. The choir sings a spring hymn by Söderblom (both text and music). Söderblom gives the new church handbook (number 1) to the church warden and he expresses a wish for a united Christendom.

Everyone sings a hymn by a well-known Swedish poet, Bo Setterlind. The vicar leads the march out of the church with the plate for the sacramental bread in his hand. The same plate as the first vicar carried into the new church in scene 3. This plate has been used at the Holy Communion throughout all the years and is still being used.

The whole audience leaves the church during an African song. It is meant to remind one of the solidarity among churches in the world, especially in the Third World. The singing goes on until all the people have left the church.

A crowd goes through the world
we are traveling homewards.
Our longing becomes a song
we are singing that song.
Hallelujah, hallelujah.

We lights fires of love
to lead them
who walk astray
although they want to go homewards.
Hallelujah, hallelujah.

During our wandering
our friendship is growing
and in a hurry
we share wine and bread
in a pause for meal.
Hallelujah, hallelujah.

An attempt at an explanation of the play by

Dagmar Wänéus