Sweden

John Wesley had contacts with Swedish visitors to England, including Karl Magnus Wrangel, chaplain to the Swedish King, who preached at the New Room, Bristol in 1768, and Professor Johan Henrik Lidén of Linköping. But Methodism was introduced into Sweden by an engineer Samuel Owen of Norwich in 1804. Joseph Rayner Stephens was sent over in 1826, followed in 1830 by George Scott. The 'English Church' was opened in Stockholm in 1840, but Scott's public criticism of the state of religion in Sweden provoked hostility and the mission was abandoned in 1842. Later Methodism in Sweden derives from the work of the Bethel Ship John Wesley among Swedish seamen in New York harbour.

Sources
  • G.G. Findlay and W.W. Holdsworth, The History of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society (1921-1924), vol. 4 pp.460-74
  • A.-J. Kristoffersen, 'How Methodism Released Spiritual and Cultural Powers in Sweden', in London Quarterly and Holborn Review, April 1960, pp. 149-51
  • W. Peter Stephens, Methodism in Europe (n.d.)
  • Ole E. Borgen, 'John Wesley and Early Swedish Pietism: Carl Magnus Wrangel and Johan Hinric Liden', in Methodist History, 38:2 (January 2000) pp.82-103

See also

Entry written by: SJP
Category: Place
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