The Church of Sweden (Swedish: Svenska kyrkan) is the largest Christian church in Sweden. The church professes the Lutheran faith and is a member of the Porvoo Communion. With 6,589,769 baptized members, it is the largest Lutheran church in the world, although combined, there are more Lutherans in the member churches of the Evangelical Church in Germany (10 million). Until 2000 it held the position of state church. Approximately 2% of the church's members regularly attend Sunday services.
The Church of Sweden, by law, is organized in the following manner:
- It is an Evangelical Lutheran community of faith manifested in parishes and dioceses. The church also has a national organisation.
- It is an open national church which, working with a democratic organisation and through the ministry of the church, covers the whole nation.
The Primate of the Church of Sweden is the Archbishop of Uppsala, currently Anders Wejryd.
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“Eddie Felson: Church of the Good Hustler.
Charlie: Looks more like a morgue to me. Those tables are the slabs they lay the stiffs on.
Eddie Felson: I’ll be alive when I get out, Charlie.”
—Sydney Carroll, U.S. screenwriter, and Robert Rossen. Eddie Felson (Paul Newman)
“A Church which has lost its memory is in a sad state of senility.”
—Henry Chadwick (b. 1920)