The room you are in now was dedicated in its current design as late as Christmas 1999. On Boxing Day or, the Feast of Saint Stephen, the then Bishop of Strängnäs, Jonas Jonson, and his Roman Catholic colleague, Anders Arborelius, dedicated it as a chapel for 20th century Christian martyrs.
It happened against a sad background. In the 20th century, more people died by human violence than in all previous centuries; many of them in the two world wars and in terrorist bombings, but a large number also killed for their Christian faith.
Such a person is called by the Christian church a martyr, a word that has had a deep, Biblical meaning since the days of the Apostles. In contemporary Christian language, this term is used in a broader sense: people who were killed either for their Christian faith, or their faithfulness to Christian values and ways of life.
Some of these martyrs of the 20th century have, on the suggestion of Christian churches around the world, been given their names in this Martyrs’ Chapel. Some of them are well known, others not. Some have been made saints by the Church, others not. Their external conditions were different, as were the circumstances of their death. But they are all witnesses of faith in our time.
Each of the names thus represents not only itself, but also other names that have not been given a place. This is why some of the tiles are empty, with no visible names. We may have forgotten them; but God does not forget them.