Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1943, Page 124
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LE NORD
selves with each other’s ecclesiastical traditions. Hal Koch’s lec-
tures on Grundtvig have been published in Swedish, and works
by Nathan Söderblom and Bo Giertz have been translated into
Danish.
This awakening mutual interest naturally has found its ex-
pression in a search for parallels between the two countries, but
this has been done without much success. It is most easy in the
case of the pietistically coloured Christianity, which has its roots
in the revivalist movements of the i9th century. Here the differ-
ence consists in the revival in Sweden often having gone outside
the Church and thus created difficulties in the relation between
the established church and the free churches, problems that are
unknown in Denmark.
A Danish parallel to the great cultural tradition in Swedish
Christianity may perhaps be found in the Kirkeligt Centrum with
Bishop Mynster and his successor Bishop Martensen. But the paral-
lel is very imperfect, as these have never come to hold the same
dominant position in Danish cultural life as e.g. 'Wallin and Söder-
blom in the cultural life of Sweden.
To the Swedish idea of the Church we hardly find any parallel
in Denmark, even though the Danish Church since 1849 has offi-
cially been called the people’s Church (‘Folkekirken’). Only quite
recently people have begun being interested in this idea. En bok
om kyrkan has been eagerly read and discussed and even taken
up for study in the Theological Faculty of Copenhagen.
It is practically impossible to find any parallel to Grundtvig
and Grundtvigianism in Sweden. Grundtvig is something unique
to Denmark and has come to determine the whole development
there, but only there. Various elements in his view of Christianity
may be found in various Swedish trends, but never in the
Grundtvigian combination. His openness to the national life is
found in Geijer and his equals, but they lacked Grundtvig’s po-
pular attitude and strong emphasizing of Congregation, Bap-
tism and Communion. Nor does Grundtvig fit into trends in
Sweden that have followed a more ecclesiastical and sacramental
line. They have not had Grundtvig’s freedom in respect of the
ecclesiastical forms and the relation to the Bible. Finally, the trends
in Sweden which have made themselves advocates of freedom
against all ecclesiastical forms, do not share Grundtvig’s determin-
ed maintenance of the confession and the sacraments.
It is of great importance to the position of Christianity in