Swedish parties withdraw from leadership people's church

Recently, Annie Lööf from the Center Party © said that her party might step out of the Synod, the Norwegian branch of Dagen writes. The day after, her colleague from the Sweden Democrats (SD), Jimmie Åkesson, followed suit. If both parties pull out, the Social Democrats will be the only major Riksdag party left in the Synod of the Church of Sweden.

During a party meeting, SD leader Jimmie Åkesson explained his position. According to him, the public opinion is clearly in favour of withdrawing its involvement in church politics, the Swedish part of Dagen writes. Currently, the issue is discussed internally in the party. According to Åkesson, the chances are that the party will no longer participate in the Synodal election.

Furthermore, Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson (Social Democrats) is expected to be questioned about the issue. It is said that her party, too, wants to withdraw from the Church Synod and focus on national politics instead, the Norwegian Dagen writes.

History

The political involvement in the church government dates from when the Church of Sweden was a pure state church. In the same way, politicians governed the state, they also ruled the state church.

Although the ties between state and church have formally been broken in Sweden, the involvement of politicians in the Church Synod is still in place.

During the last church elections, the Social Democrats received 27.5 per cent of the votes, the Center Party 10.9 per cent and the Sweden Democrats 7.8 per cent.