The First Steps:

The 1923 reply by the Church of Sweden to the Lambeth Conference

To the Conference of Bishops in the Anglican Communion.
With the deep and sincere satisfaction we have received the resolution adopted by the Conference of Bishops of the Anglican Communion, holden at Lambeth in London during the summer 1920, wherein this Conference recommends that members of the Swedish Church, qualified to receive the Sacrament in their own Church, should be admitted to Holy Communion in the Anglican Church, as well as that on suitable occasions permission should be given to Swedish ecclesiastics to give addresses in churches belonging to the Anglican Communion. That the Lambeth Conference, after long and thoroughgoing negotiations which have taken place in this matter during recent years, now for its own part have found the time come for a closer connection between the two churches of such a kind as from its most important feature might be characterized as intercommunion, this is to us a source of real joy, because we see therein a step towards that great goal for which we pray and strive with you: that the unity which has always existed and exists between all true disciples of Christ, should be better realized than hitherto also in external matters, and also because of the direct and practical importance, which such a connection must have for the work to which our Churches called, for the pastoral task which is imposed upon her by the Lord of the Church even for those of its members who live outside the borders of their own country, and thus also and particularly for those who live within the British Empire.

The question of the terms of Communion between the two churches has not been the object of general discussions and resolutions among us to the same extent as among you, for reasons, which will appear from the following pages. But from the practice, which has been followed hitherto in this matter by our church, these two principles might be drawn.

a. To individual members of foreign communions who have desired more occasionally to take part in the Holy Communion in our Church for the strengthening of their inner life, this right has been conceded as a duty of charity. A refusal of this right in such cases, in casu necessitatis, will hardly have occurred in our Church.

b. A concession of this right in genere to the members of a certain communion on the other hand presupposes that an essential agreement, proved by the confessional documents of the communion in question exists as regards the spirit and the main points of Christian faith. In the case of those communions, which, like our own, have accepted the Confession Augustana, the concession of such general intercommunion has been considered as quite natural, while in other matter has been thought to demand a particular enquiry. But that the direct acceptance of the Confession Augustana has not been considered in all cases as the necessary condition for the concession of Intercommunion is shown also by the fact, which has a particular interest in this case, that already once before, from the 17th century, intercommunion of this kind has existed in North America, between our Church and yours. Two centuries later during some years after 1866, Swedish emigrants to the United States were recommended to the Protestant Episcopal Church in such places where was no access to a Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Community1.

Thus, in the question of intercommunion our Church has not attached decisive weight either to the doctrine of the Ministry in general or to what is usually called the Apostolical Succession of Bishops and the questions thereby implied. The deeper reason for this derived from our fundamental conceptions, and has been explained several times during the preparatory investigations and particularly during the negotiations in Upsala in September 1909, by the representatives of the Swedish Church. For the explanation of this position, which we think that we ought also now to emphasize, we refer to the points with regard to the doctrine of the Swedish Church on the Ministry that were on that occasion laid before the Committee appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1909, and form part of the report, issued in 1911 by this Committee. From these points we quote:

"3. No particular organization of the Church and of its ministry is instituted jure divino, not even the order and discipline and state of things recorded in the New Testament, because the scriptures, the norma normans of the faith of the Church, are no law, but vindicate for the New Covenant the great principle of Christian freedom, unweariedly asserted by St. Paul against every form of legal religion, and applied with fresh strength and clearness by Luther, but instituted by our Saviour Himself, as, for instance, when, in taking farewell of His disciples, He did not regulate their future work by a priori rules and institutions, but directed them to the guidance of the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost.

"4. The object of any organization and of the whole ministry being included in the preaching of the Gospel and the administration of the sacraments - according to the fifth article of the Augustana, God has instituted ministerium docendi evangelii et porrigendi sacramenta - our Church cannot recognize any essential difference, de jure divino, of aim and authority between the two or three orders into which the ministry of grace may have been divided, jure humano, for the benefit and convenience of the Church.

"5. The value of every organization of the ministerium ecclesiasticum, and of the Church in general, is only to be judged by its fitness and ability to become a pure vessel for the supernatural contents, and a perfect channel for the way of Divine Revelation unto mankind.

"6. That doctrine in no wise makes our Church indifferent to the organization and the forms of ministry which the cravings and experiences of the Christian community have produced under the guidance of the spirit in the course of history. We do not only regard the peculiar forms and traditions of our Church with the reverence due to a venerable legacy from the past, but we realize in them a blessing from the God of history accorded to us".

From the conception of our Church regarding the ministry which has been declared here again, it follows that for us decisive importance must be attached not to any questions of a more formal character, but to the question whether and how far the two communities agree in these ideas as to the content of that message of salvation, founded on the divine revelation, which has been committed to both of them. The difference which no doubt can be found here, must be neither overrated nor underrated. The difference as to the emphasis laid on the doctrine of ministry, which has appeared above, might point to a certain discrepancy even in matters that have a more central position according to our valuation. Another point which presents itself to the mind when the question of intercommunion is raised, is the difference which, according to the confessions of both churches, exists in their conception of the Lord´s supper itself. The judgement of the extent of this difference is made more difficult by the fact, which has appeared also during the preparatory negotiations, that evidently within the Anglican Church itself different doctrines are held in these two questions.

Yet, and without any wish to belittle the difference that exists between the two churches, we do not hesitate to pronounce as our opinion that during the course of the preparatory negotiations and so far as we have gradually got to know more about the Anglican Church, our impression of that unity which binds the two Churches together in what is deepest and most central, has become predominant. In the Church and the congregation of Christ, as in every living body, real concord is not characterized by uniformity, but by unity in diversity. A detailed definition of those matters in which this concord appears cannot be attempted her. But yet we do not feel justified in pretermitting briefly to call attention to two points, which are to us more decisive than all others, with regard to the purity of the Christian doctrine - viz. The recognition of Scripture as norma normans both with regard to life and doctrine, and the building of our salvation on God`s grace alone received by faith.

The first of these principles means to us that in matters of faith, no other authority must be put directly or indirectly above or, which is the same thing, on a level with the prophetic and apostolic word in Holy scripture, as the message preserved to us of the works of God for the salvation of man in that history of salvation, wherein the all-commanding centre which everything else presages or points back to is Jesus Christ. The prophetic and apostolic message has sprung out of this revelation of God himself and is itself a part of this revelation. All later expressions of Christian faith, however great their value may be, are to be considered only as more or less reliable guides to or, in the words of the Formula Concordiae "witnesses" of this revelation, witnesses whose verdicts must always be tested, by the experience of the Church and of the individual Christian, in the light of the revelation itself, which is recorded, confessed, and interpreted in the prophetic and apostolic message and is thus accessible to us also.

When we put beside the principle of revelation, the principle of faith or grace, this is at bottom not another principle by the side of first, but we mean only thereby to make the content of revelation more clear from a certain point of view. The revelation is throughout essentially a revelation of God`s prevenient and unconditional grace, precedent and independent of all human endeavour, that is: a revelation of the love of God, which, while condemning sin, searches for the sinner and restores him with His forgivness. What we want to express by this is not only one, not even the most central, of those Christian doctrines which have grown out of the Divine revelation, but the fundamental direction and meaning of God`s whole activity for salvation, whereby He has revealed himself to us and has, in spite of our sin, opened to us in Jesus Christ His paternal bosom. The revelation has no other meaning that could be put on a level with this: everything else that we derive from it is only a consequence of this. And when we combine the Grace of God and the Faith of man in a close connection, we mean only to determine thereby more fully the nature of prevenient Grace against all pelagianizing tendencies. Faith means to us, not something which man has to do that might precede and be a condition of God`s grace and remission of sins, but faith is only that organon leptikon which is created by God`s grace, and whereby God`s grace is received by man: out of the revelation of God`s love in Christ Jesus our trust in this love is born and by that it is sustained. The new moral life is a fruit of this communion with God, which has been opened to us independently of any works of man. Our moral life is not the condition of and does not sustain our religious relationship to God, but it is rather conditioned and sustained thereby. "Good works" are, to speak with Luther, not the condition of blessedness, but that blessedness which is prepared for us in spite of our sin, when we are called to be the children of God, is the condition without which "good works" cannot be done at all. That those two principles which we began by discerning in this letter are fundamentally one, is made still more manifest by contemplating the opposites, which are denied by them. If the principle of revelation turns in the first place against any form of institutionalism and legalism (nomism), the principle of faith or of grace has primarily in view all sorts of pelagianism. But then institutionalism, nomism and pelagianism are only different aspects of that fundamental conception which is totally denied by us. Both principles could be most simply combined in this: between God and the soul, or which is the same to us, between Christ and the faith, nothing, no third principle, no institution, no law, no proper works must intervene.

The same conception is contained in its outlines, so far as we have been able to see, partly in the sixth, partly in the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth of the Thirty-nine Articles.

We are convinced that between our branches of the Universal Church of Christ, notwithstanding the shades of opinion that may exist, there is an essential unity in that fundamental conception which we have now briefly indicated, and to which we unswervingly adhere. In this conviction we accept with fraternal confidence the outstretched hand. We rejoice at the decision of the Anglican Bishops, and on our side we approve of the practice that members of the Anglican Communion, qualified to receive the Sacrament in their own Church, should be admitted to Holy Communion in our Church, as well as that on suitable occasions permission should be given to Anglican ecclesiastics to give addresses in our churches and there to perform religious functions.

To this general answer we ought to add a few words about some special questions, mentioned in the resolutions of the Lambeth Conference and in the report of a special Committee, by which the resolutions were prepared:

1. With regard to Resolution 25 of the Conference, where it is recommended that in the event of an invitation being extended to an Anglican Bishop or Bishops to take part in the consecration of a Swedish Bishop, the invitation should, if possible, be accepted, subject to approval of the Metropolitan, we express our satisfaction that a wish, expressed by the Archbishop of Canterbury in a letter of August 11, 1920, to the Archbishop of Upsala, when communicating to him the Lambeth resolutions - viz. That for the future a reciprocal assistance of Bishops from one of the Churches at the consecration of Bishops in the other might be practiced, when a suitable occasion presents itself - has now already begun to be put into practice by the assistance of two Anglican Bishops at the consecration of two Swedish Bishops in Upsala on September 19, 1920. We recommend, further, that in case such an invitation to take part in the consecration of an Anglican Bishop should be extended to a Swedish Bishop, it should, if possible, be accepted, subject to the approval of the Archbishop.

2. The Committee appointed by the Lambeth Conference to report on these questions, gives expression in this report to two desiderata which were discussed already in the preliminary negotiations in Upsala, in September 1909. They concern, firstly, the establishment in the Church of Sweden of a Diaconate of the same kind as that existing in the Anglican Communion, and, secondly, the introduction, likewise in accordance with the Anglican practice, of the laying-on of hands as an outward sign of grace given in Confirmation.

With regard to these two desiderata, which, as we notice, have neither now nor formerly been made in any way conditional for intercommunion, we wish to make the following brief statements: a. In our Church we do not now possess any order exactly corresponding to the Anglican Diaconate. For a number of years, however, we have had among us a male Diaconate for the service of charity among the sick, the infirm, the poor, the lost, thus of the same character as the Diaconate of women, which is older and more amply developed among us. In Resolution 49 of the Lambeth Conference, this Diaconate is said to be primitive one in the Christian Church, a statement which is undoubtedly true according to Acts. VI. No need of our wish for a Diaconate as an introduction to the Ministry has been expressed in our Church.

b. The question about laying-on of hands in Confirmation has, in our opinion, decidedly the character of an adiaphoron. Consequently, we have no scruples against the use of this beautiful rite, which is practiced in our Church on other occasions; on the other hand, we cannot accept it if supported by arguments that would in any way question its character of an adiaphoron.

In this connection, we do not feel justified in pretermitting to draw your attention to the very great importance that our Church attaches to the thorough instruction of the first communicants in the fundamentals of the Christian faith, as being an indispensable condition for Confirmation - a requirement that does not seem to be paid the same attention to the Anglican practice of Confirmation. Against the admission to the Lord´s Supper in our Church of persons confirmed in the Anglican Church, hesitation has earlier been expressed among us because of the duty of instruction laid on the Church in Matthew XXVIII. 20. Nevertheless, this has not prevented admission to Holy Communion in our Church for those confirmed in the Anglican Church. We are of opinion that both Churches may have something to learn from each other, both with regard to the preparation for Confirmation, and to the act itself and its significance. Thus, what has been said about the instruction of the first communicants must be considered as a desideratum, but not as a condition for intercommunion.

3. Lastly, in order to prevent any misunderstanding, we have to draw your attention to the fact that the Augustana Synod in North America and the Tamil Evangelical Lutheran Church in South India, which may be considered as daughter communities of the Church of Sweden, and with which our Church has intercommunion and a very intimate fellowship also in other respects, are nevertheless quite independent Churches, so that no conclusions with regard to them can be drawn from agreements made by the Church of Sweden for the promotion of unity in the Church of Christ

May God give His blessing to the more intimate connection between our Churches that we are now establishing, and may the Church of Christ in our countries from this connection reap rich fruits for her spiritual life.

May we thus also be made better fitted to become instruments in the hand of God for establishing of the bond of unity and peace between the disciples of Christ all over the earth!

Stockholm, April 21, 1922

Signed on behalf of the Conference of Bishops of the Church of Sweden, holden at Sankta Clara, Stockholm, April 20 to 21, 1922

Nathan Söderblom
Archbishop of Upsala
Gottfrid Billing
Bishop of Lund
Hj. Danell
Bishop of Skara

Svenska Biskopskonferensens delegation

(This text is a transcript from Kyrkohistorisk Årsskrift 23 (1923)

1 In the circular letter of the Clerus Comitialis to the clergy from the diet of 1865 - 66, it was recommended that a testimonial to this effect should be given to emigrants. Amongst the reasons for this it is said "that a Bishop of the English Episcopal Church in the United States, now present in our capital, has given us the kindest assurances that such of our countrymen as go to places where there are no Evangelical Lutheran Communities, may be sure to find necessary assistance in matter spiritual as well as a temporal at the hands of the clergy of the English Church, if they choose to apply to them, without the slightest attempt being made by the English Church to imbue them with other doctrines than those which our Church confesses, or to separate them in any respect from this Church".