Pilgrimage to Sweden's medieval churches

By Tim Matthews
"Spacious Sweden," the travel posters sing — and rightly so. The average . Swede has twice as much elbow-room as his British• cousin, with the added advantage of having been brought up, emotionally if not physically, on the border of silent lakes and still pine forests.
"This seclusion from the world, the lack of gm and light during the greater part of the year, of necessity exercised a great influence on him," wrote Henrik Schiick in "Lucidarius." "An Italian can be superstitious or bigoted. but he is not religious like a northerner who spends half his life in darkness or in dusk.
Sweden was converted to Christianity in the early part of the I Ith century, largely through the missionary work of English Benedictines, especially St. Sigfrid, Archbishop of York and a monk of Glastonbury. They were men who, according to Sweden's patron saint, St. Bridget, "burned like twigs of olive with a bright and pure flame."
In spite of the fact that most of the buildings from those early days have disappeared (most of them were made from local wood), astonishingly a number of relics still do remain and arc easily visited.
My own entirely subjective, partial and haphazard 'sampling of these Swedish medieval churches was made along a route which took me in a broad, circular, 10-day motoring sweep from the east coast to the west. This took me, first. southwards from Gothenburg, through Varberg, to Lund which was once the archcpiscopal see for the whole of Scandinavia.
Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Lund supported 22 churches and seven monasteries. After the Reformation, Lund (which is said to have been founded by King Canute) went into a decline, and for a time became nothing much more than a village. Then in 1688 the university was founded and the city grew into importance once again.
Lund Cathedral, which was completed in 1145. is remarkable for its sculptured pillars showing Samson who is known locally, for some reason, as the "Great Finn" — pulling down the temple at Gaza.
Leaving Lund, I drove eastwards through the beechwoods of Sk!ne towards the province of Blekinge, which appears in many medieval records and still boasts a number of its old churches. Ronneby is the chief town of the area, with its Church of the Holy Cross.
This was originally a cobble-stone church built about 1150. Inside there are some splendid wall paintings, including one early 15th-century picture of St. Peter holding the keys of Paradise.
Within a I2-mile radius of Ronneby are four more medieval churches — Edestad, Johannishus, Listerby and Nattraby. A birchwood statue of St. Nicholas, which used to be in the church at Johannishus, is now in the National Museum in Stockholm. but several other Gothic statues from the church may be seen in the local Blekinge Museum.
"Men and women are sinning in the kingdom of Sweden . . for they take pride in their beautiful bodies which I have given them. They strive after nches which I have not willed to give them. Thus they fall into hideous desires . . .
"Because of their abominable concupiscence they so displease my Father that he will never find them worthy to behold His countenance." So Christ once terrifyingly told St. Bridget. "Judgment I would long since have caused to come upon the kingdom of Sweden if I had not in the land certain friends who by their prayer move me to mercy."
From Ronneby, it is a day's drive eastwards to Kalmar, the city from which St. Bridget embarked in 1349 in a ship which was to take her (although she did not know it) away from her country for ever.
As she set sail towards Kalmar Sund and the south, the stonemasons' hammers were already ringing out on the walls of Kalmar Castle, a majestic building which dominates the city and which is. to my mind, one of the loveliest castles in Europe.
Until last year the Island of Oland was separated from Kalmar and the mainland, Now a bridge. the longest in Europe, has been opened and Oland is in danger of losing its own remote atmosphere. Visit it, before it does so completely, and see
the broad-towered parish churches scattered along its 84-mile length.
At Vastervik, further north, the only old building to have survived the intervening wars and fires is the Church of St. Gertrude. It was built in the 1430s, had a short. perilous period as a food warehouse in the early 20th century, but has now been restored. If it is closed you may borrow the huge antique key from the pastor who lives next door.
Vastervik is the nearest port to the Island of Gotland, where the stained glass, wall paintings and limestone carvings in the island's 95 medieval parish churches are worth a month's holiday by themselves.
The island's only town is Vishy, a ruined city with the largest and best-preserved medieval town wall in Europe after Carcassonne. The cathedral. Maria Kyrka, is the only one of the town's old churches still in use. These include a .Dominican church, a 13th century Franciscan friary, an octagonal hospital church, and the early 13th century Church of St. Hansgatan.
From Gotland I headed through lonely side-roads and still forests to Lake Vatern and my last and favourite church. About 25 miles south of Kristineham, on a small mud-road in the forest. is a small hamlet called Sodra FOUL It is not, I must warn you, very well signposted, but there stands one of the country's ten remaining wooden medieval churches.
Its interior is covered with the most perfect wall paintings, as fresh as if they had been made yesterday. The church, it is believed, was built and decorated by Cistercian monks between 1323 and 1494.
St. Bridget had written of those early monks as "twigs of olive with a bright and pure flame." Unfortunately she had to complete her narrative. "Such as these were the first Benedictines," she continued, "hut now the spirit has retreated from the sons of St. Benedict, the torches lying on the ground giving no more light but only smoking — the smoke of impurity and avarice."
It is then perhaps hardly surprising that when the Reformation came it was devastating: all traces of Catholicism were rooted out from Sweden, except for a few remote places sheltered in the deep forests.
The Church's return over the years has been gradual, to say the least. There are, today, only five Swedishborn priests in the whole country: only 47 Catholic churches in all Sweden. And yet, mysteriously. the English Benedictine thread continues to run clearly through the Church's history.
In 1957 a monk of the English Benedictine Congregation, Dom Ansgar Nelson, was (until his retirement through ill-health) appointed Bishop of Stockholm with jurisdiction over the largest see in Europe, virtually the whole of Sweden. For a time he was aided by another English Benedictine. Dom Edmund Stewart, from Buckfast.
Thirteen years ago yet another English Benedictine, Abbot Oswald Eaves, the retired Abbot of Fort Augustus, began missionary work under Bishop Nelson, and is now based at St. Sigfrid's Catholic Centre at Karlstad with parochial responsibilities in Varmland, an area almost the size of Wales, which stretches right up to the Norwegian border.
Abbot Eaves is not a young man and the strain of his heavy work is obviously telling upon him: it is only 17 years since the first Catholic priest returned to this area since the 16th century, and there is much lost ground to be made up.
Though Sweden's worldly preoccupations today are still, and only too clearly, concerned with "beautiful bodies and striving after riches," there is still a thirst for silence and solitude and true religion, engendered by the "darkness and the dusk."
Abbot Eaves appeals most earnestly for prayers for his lonely apostolate, and prays too that some day soon it may be possible for the English Benedictine Congregation to send more monks back to Sweden.
HOW TO GET THERE: To tour Sweden's medieval churches it is necessary to have a car. Car ferries sail regularly to Gothenburg from Tilbury (Swedish-Lloyd), and from Immingham (Tor Line). Katolsk Observa tor. of Stockholm, publish a road-map and directory of Sweden's Catholic churches.