Sweden

Sweden
Bahá’í Intercontinental Teaching Conference in Sweden, 1953.
Location of Sweden
National Assembly		Sweden
Statistics:
Total Population
-	UN 2021	10,467,097
Bahá'í pop.
-	Bahá'í source	1,000
-	Non-Bahá'í source	7,125
Local Assemblies		25
History: Firsts
-	Bahá'í to visit	1908
-	Pioneers	1920, August Rudd
-	Local Assembly	1948, Stockholm
-	National Assembly	1962
Official Website		http://www.bahai.se/
Related media
Categories: Sweden • People

Sweden is a country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Christianity and irreligion are the predominant belief systems and Swedish is the official language. In recent history Sweden was unified with Norway until both nations became independent in 1905.

The first Bahá’ís to live in Sweden moved to the country in 1920 and a community became firmly established in the late 1940s and consolidated itself administratively in the 1950s and 1960s. The community remains active to the present day.

History

Bahá’ís began visiting Sweden as early as 1908 and the first pioneer to the country was August Rudd, a Swede who had become a Bahá’í in America, who wrote to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá expressing his desire to return to Sweden in 1919. He received a reply encouraging him to do so and sailed from the United States to Sweden in June, 1920, where he settled in Boda. Rudd was joined by Edvard Olsson who also pioneered from the United States to a town a few miles north of Boda in 1921.

Rudd enlisted the assistance of Anna Gustavsson, a teacher, in translating Bahá’í pamphlets into Swedish shortly after arriving in Sweden and she became a Bahá’í and married Rudd a short time after declaring. The Rudd's became well known as Bahá’ís in their local community and purchased a motor-boat and car which they used to undertake teaching trips across Sweden and Norway. In 1923 they were visited by Louise Ericksson, a Bahá’í from the United States, who gave them a copy of Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era and they began efforts to translate it into Swedish. Rudd passed away in 1926 and his wife continued intensive travel teaching and translation work including publishing a translation of Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era in 1932 and the Kitab-i-Iqan in 1936.

In 1927 Martha Root visited Sweden where she visited Stockholm and Uppsala. During her visit she had Bahá’í literature sent to the royal family, spoke at the University Club of Uppsala, and had a lengthy discussion on the Faith with the Archbishop of Sweden in Uppsala. Root visited Sweden again in 1934, spending time in Stockholm, where she attended the annual international Esperanto Congress. The same year Root encouraged Richard St. Barbe Baker to present a copy of Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era to the King of Sweden which he accomplished in Copenhagen with the King conveying greetings to Martha Root and Shoghi Effendi. Nellie French also visited Sweden to attend the 1934 Esperanto Congress and she was interviewed on the Faith by a major newspaper which marked the first published mention of the Faith in the Swedish press.

In 1936 Margarita Orlova undertook a teaching tour of Europe which included a visit to Stockholm where she was interviewed by four major newspapers and organized the establishment of a Bahá’í study group, however the outbreak of the Second World War curtailed any efforts to establish a Bahá’í community in Sweden. As of the early 1940's the only known Bahá’ís in Sweden were Anna Rudd, who had remarried, and a Miss Zetterlund, with Anna passing in 1943.

When Gustav Sundquist of Stockholm declared in approximately 1946 after meeting Mildred and Rafi Mottahedeh, Bahá’ís who were travelling across post war Europe, he was regarded as the only known Bahá’í in Sweden. He was immediately highly active in teaching the Faith distributing thousands of pamphlets to proclaim the religion, and he was joined in Stockholm by American Bahá’í pioneers in 1947 with Alice Dudley arriving in February, 1947, Jennie Anderson in March, and Nancy Gates in October. The pioneers quickly established a wide range of contacts, began to hold well attended teaching meetings, and their efforts resulted in the Local Spiritual Assembly of Stockholm being established in 1948. The first Bahá’í conference gathering the communities of the Scandinavian countries and Finland together was held in Stockholm in 1951, and an additional Local Spiritual Assembly of Sweden was established in Goteborg in April, 1953.

In 1953 Shoghi Effendi launched the Ten Year Crusade, a teaching plan to coordinate the efforts of the international Bahá’í community, and one of its goals was the establishment of a National Spiritual Assembly of Sweden. In July that year an Intercontinental Conference to launch the Crusade was held in Stockholm. At the conference the establishment of Bahá’í communities in Europe and the islands of the Mediterranean, Atlantic Ocean and North Sea was discussed. In March 1957 a National Hazíratu’l-Quds for Sweden was purchased in Stockholm, and in April the same year the first National Spiritual Assembly for Scandinavia and Finland was elected at a Convention held at the building.

In 1960 a Local Spiritual Assembly was established in Uppsala, in 1961 another Assembly was established in Malmo, and in 1962 Sweden established an independent National Spiritual Assembly at a Convention held in Stockholm. The Bahá’í community of Sweden was maintained itself throughout the 1960's having four Local Spiritual Assemblies and twenty-nine Bahá’í groups as of 1968. Between 1968 and 1973 Bahá’í marriage was officially recognized by the government of Sweden, Bahá’í Holy Days were recognized by over twenty schools allowing Bahá’í children exemption from attendance, a copy of The Proclamation of Bahá’u’lláh was presented to the King of Sweden, and a Bahá’í Publishing Trust of Sweden was established.

In 1974 a teaching conference focused on teaching the Faith to the Samish people of Northern Sweden which was attended by Hand of the Cause Raḥmatu’lláh Muhájir, and other teaching initiatives of the 1970's included distributing information folders on the Faith to religious science teachers, school headmasters, and publishing companies that published school textbooks on religion, and supporting teaching efforts in Lithuania. In 1979 the Bahá’í community of Sweden held its own independent summer school for the first time, rather than participating in a joint summer school for Sweden, Norway, and Denmark.

In the 1980's the National Spiritual Assembly of Switzerland was granted the authority to determine if individuals were Bahá’ís for the purpose of emigrating to Sweden to flee persecution of the Faith in Iran. In 1989 the Swedish Bahá’ís launched the Eskil Ljungberg Project to reinvigorate enthusiasm for teaching the Faith. The project was based in Uppsala and involved visiting schools and holding weekly meetings at a centre rented for the purpose.

In 1991 the European Bahá’í Youth Council established a full time Secretariat in Sweden, and in 1993 the Swedish Bahá’í community collaborated with the Swedish International Development Agency to fund a literacy program in Zambia. In 1996 two British Bahá’ís were granted an audience with the King and Queen of Sweden presenting them with Swedish Bahá’í literature.

In 2021 a seminar was held at the Swedish Parliament to commemorate the Centenary of the Ascension of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, and in 2022 grassroots local conferences were held by Bahá’ís in Sweden as part of the Global Conferences initiative of the international Bahá’í community.