The Uniting Church in Sweden was formed by a merger of the Baptist Union of Sweden, the United Methodist Church and the Mission Covenant Church of Sweden on 4 June 2011. The temporary name Gemensam framtid (Joint Future) was changed to Equmeniakyrkan during a conference in Karlstad on 11 May 2013. One of the churches that formed the Uniting Church in Sweden, the Mission Covenant Church of Sweden, was a founding member of the World Council of Churches. The Mission Covenant Church of Sweden was born in the spiritual revival in the 19th century. The first congregation was founded in 1855, the denomination in 1878. These events marked a protest against the state church system in which the bishops and priests were appointed by the state and the law obliged all Swedes to baptism, membership and communion in the Church of Sweden. The MCCS adopted therefore a congregational character. It was a vital force in the democratization of Swedish society. With its high ecumenical profile the church has, together with the Church of Sweden (Lutheran), a leading position within the Christian Council of Sweden and is also involved in several bilateral dialogues, ranging from Pentecostals to the Roman Catholic diocese. In 2006 the Mission Covenant Church signed an agreement with the Church of Sweden recognizing "each other as apostolic churches .... holding the same confession of the apostolic faith" and "the same understanding of the sacrements". The Equmenia Youth is one of the strongest youth movements in Sweden. The vigorous youth work has broad contacts in Swedish society and is an effective form of evangelism and diaconal work. Mutual cooperation overseas, based on former mission work, is carried out in the two Congos, in Ecuador, India, Japan and Nicaragua. The church maintains contact with several Reformed churches and with churches in the Nordic-Baltic countries or through CEC with other Christian denominations. It was established on 4 June 2011 by the merger of the United Methodist Church, Baptist Union of Sweden, and Mission Covenant Church of Sweden. Initially the name of the unified denomination was the Joint Future Church (Swedish: Gemensam framtid), before the name was changed during a conference in Karlstad on 11 May 2013 to the present Uniting Church in Sweden or Equmeniakyrkan in Swedish. Organization[edit]The Uniting Church in Sweden consists of about 640 local congregations in Sweden, which collectively have about 59,000 members. The church serves around 130,000 people as of 2021. Since 2007, the merging denominations also had a common youth organization called Equmenia. The intention to form the new denomination was made in the respective conferences in 2008, 2009 and 2010 before the final decision was made in 2011. Since the inaugural meeting in 2011, the denomination's president was Ann-Sofie Lasell, who was succeeded in 2014 by Tomas Bjöersdorff and in 2017 by Susanne Rodmar. The current president, Kerstin Torkelsson Enlund, was elected in 2020. The church conference in Linköping in 2012 elected Lasse Svensson as church leader and Olle Alkholm and Sofia Camnerin as deputy church leaders. All three were re-elected at the 2016 church conference in Stockholm. At the 2020 church conference, Lasse Svensson was re-elected as church leader, and Karin Wiborn and Joakim Hagerius were newly elected as deputy church leaders. The Uniting Church in Sweden runs University College Stockholm (formerly Stockholm School of Theology) and along with Equmenia runs Härnösand Folk High School, Sjövik Folk High School, Karlskoga Folk High School, Bromma Folk High School and Södra Vätterbygdens folkhögskola. Together with the Swedish Alliance Mission, it runs the aid organization Diakonia [sv]. The Uniting Church in Sweden is a member organization of the study association Bilda. Along with a number of other Christian denominations and organizations, it runs the nonprofit social work organization Hela människan [sv]. Ecumenism[edit]The ecumenical agreements that previously existed between the Church of Sweden, the Mission Covenant Church of Sweden and the United Methodist Church of Sweden have since 2016 been adapted to a similar agreement between the Church of Sweden and the Uniting Church in Sweden. References[edit]
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