| Uniting Church in Sweden | |
|---|---|
| Equmeniakyrkan | |
 | |
| Classification | United church |
| Orientation | Protestantism |
| Theology | Pietist,Reformed |
| Associations | World Communion of Reformed Churches,Baptist World Alliance,International Federation of Free Evangelical Churches,United Methodist Church,European Baptist Federation,World Methodist Council,World Council of Churches,Conference of European Churches[1] |
| Region |  Sweden |
| Headquarters | Bromma,Sweden |
| Origin | 4 June 2011 |
| Merger of | Baptist Union of Sweden,Mission Covenant Church of Sweden,United Methodist Church of Sweden |
| Members | ca. 59,000 (2022) |
| Official website | www |
Uniting Church in Sweden (Swedish:Equmeniakyrkan) is aunitedProtestant denomination inSweden.
It was established on 4 June 2011 by the merger of theUnited Methodist Church,Baptist Union of Sweden, andMission Covenant Church of Sweden.[2]
Initially the name of the unified denomination was theJoint Future Church (Swedish:Gemensam framtid), before the name was changed during a conference inKarlstad on 11 May 2013 to the presentUniting Church in Sweden orEqumeniakyrkan in Swedish.[3]
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[update].[4]
Since 2007, the merging denominations also had a common youth organization calledEqumenia. 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.[5] 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.[6]
The Uniting Church in Sweden runsUniversity College Stockholm (formerly Stockholm School of Theology)[7] and along with Equmenia runs Härnösand Folk High School, Sjövik Folk High School,[8] Karlskoga Folk High School,[9] Bromma Folk High School andSödra Vätterbygdens folkhögskola.[10] Together with theSwedish Alliance Mission, it runs the aid organizationDiakonia [sv].[11] The Uniting Church in Sweden is a member organization of the study association Bilda.[12] Along with a number of other Christian denominations and organizations, it runs the nonprofit social work organizationHela människan [sv].[13]
The ecumenical agreements that previously existed between theChurch 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.[14]
