Allhelgonamässan i Katarina församling, Stockholm - Reflexioner kring församlingssyn och liturgi i storstadens miljö

Abstract

Some 8-9 years ago a priest, Olle Carlsson, in the Katarina Parish, in central Stockholm, held a new communion service in cooperation with some lay people, who were participants in a dialogue group which discussed spiritual questions of life.  

This service has, in only a few years, grown to be perhaps the biggest Sunday service in Stockholm, according to participants. Two to three hundred people participate every Sunday at 6 p.m.  

This service is called »Allhelgonamässan» (All Saints’ Mass), due to the name of the church called »Allhelgonakyrkan» (All Saints’ Church) - a relatively small wooden church built in 1917, belonging to the Katarina Parish.  

The communion service was created very naked - free from overloaded liturgy, also totally free from overloaded enthusiastic evangelicalism. It follows the main structure of the weekday- mass in the Church of Sweden »handbook», but also includes an introductory testimony and a short sermon.  

One of the main concepts is fellowship: in recognizing spiritual longing, material and social needs and a common experience of both failure and progress - all seen in local, national and international perspectives.  

»Allhelgonamässan» is a challenge to the traditional territorial concept of ecclesiology in the Church of Sweden, especially in the city of Stockholm. Partakers also come from outside the territorial parish of Katarina, and some are perhaps not even churchmembers.  

It is more of a »network» congregation, where common experiences shape a new congregation of people who recognize themselves in their needs and happiness of life in simple direct testimonies, sermons, prayers, singing and Holy Communion.  

»Allhelgonamässan» has declared itself to be a service open for all kinds of people, especially for those who cannot declare a traditional belief in God. It is a service open to people in spiritual and social need. This fact creates a spiritual congregation, which is evidently magnetic - also to people with traditional Christian faith.  

As the vicar of the parish, I highly appreciate and support »Allhelgona­ mässan» as a spiritual sign of our time in a so called secular society.  »Post-secularity» is evidently here.