The Lutheran Church of Sweden for the first time elected its archbishop at Uppsala on Thursday 30 March, thus breaking with a long-standing tradition that conferred on the government the task of appointing the head of the Church. The separation between Church and State in Sweden is in fact comparatively recent: it only dates to 1st February 2000. The new archbishop, Anders Wejryd, was designated by a college of electors of whom 176 of the 320 members voted for him. The investiture ceremony will take place in Uppsala on 2 September. The Most Rev. Anders Arborelius, bishop of the Catholic Church in Sweden, also sent a message of congratulations to the new archbishop of the Lutheran Church of Sweden: it is important – says the message – “that the Catholic Church and the Lutheran Church of Sweden should continue to engage in discussions on important questions”, even if, in the recent past, causes of friction have not been lacking. The last such instance was in October 2005, prompted by “the controversial decision to permit the blessing of homosexual couples who had registered their own ‘partnership’ at the civil level”.
