Gunnar Rosendal

Gunnar Rosendal (4 April 1897 – 26 December 1988) was a Swedish Lutheran priest, Doctor of Theology, and parish priest of Osby. Through his books promoting High Church Lutheran theology and spirituality, especially Kyrklig förnyelse (1935), he became a leading and disputed figure of the Catholic movement in the Church of Sweden.

Gunnar Rosendal (1967)

Early life

Rosendal was born in Grevie parish, Scania, Sweden, the son of Andreas and Teolinda Rosendal. His mother died early and his father moved to the United States so he and his sister were raised by an aunt.[1] After graduating from Lunds Privata Elementarskola he began his theological studies at Lund University in 1918. He was ordained on 25 May 1922 by bishop Gottfrid Billing and moved to Väsby to begin his work as a priest.[2]

International contacts

Rosendal had many contacts to the liturgical movement in the Roman Catholic church, especially in Benedictine monasteries, and personally knew many theologians of the liturgical and ecumenical movement, such as Pius Parsch and Paul Couturier. He also had plenty of contacts with Anglo-Catholicism in the Church of England, e.g. Dom Gregory Dix, and was member of Fellowship of Saint Alban and Saint Sergius. Rosendal often liked to portray himself as Catholic as possible, but was also rooted in the theology of 17th-century Lutheran orthodoxy, which he knew well. On the recommendation of Bo Giertz he began to read books by Carl Olof Rosenius, which made a lasting impression. Rosendal himself used the neo-Thomistic paradigm and resisted all kinds of liberal theology as well as the dialectical theology of Karl Barth. Rosendal was one of the theologians that worked for the foundation of the International League for Apostolic Faith and Order (ILAFO).

Legacy

Rosendal died in Kristianstad in 1988. In Sweden his influence can be seen in the foundation of the high-church organization arbetsgemenskapen Kyrklig Förnyelse (aKF), which was inspired by his book, Kyrklig förnyelse.

References

Notes
  1. Kilström p. 94
  2. Kilström p. 95

Sources
  • Grönqvist, Vivi-Ann, ed. (2004). Gunnar Rosendal - en banbrytare för kyrklig förnyelse [Gunnar Rosendal - a pioneer for church renewal in Church of Sweden] (in Swedish). Artos.
  • Ljungman, Staffan (1997). Fader Gunnar i Osby: en alldeles ovanlig präst (in Swedish). Lund: Arcus. ISBN 9789188552129.
  • Kilström, Bengt Ingmar (1995). "Gunnar Rosendal (1897–1988)". Societas Sanctae Birgittae 1971–1995: festskrift (in Swedish). Strängnäs: Societas Sanctae Birgittae. ISBN 9789163035395.
  • Bexell, Oloph. "Gunnar Rosendal". Svenskt biografiskt lexikon (in Swedish). Retrieved 2022-10-27.
  • Bexell, Oloph (2017). "Renewal of the Church from within the Church itself. Gunnar Rosendal's Kyrklig förnyelse - an Ecclesiastical Classic in the Church of Sweden". In Gumundsson; Maurits; Nykvist (eds.). Classics in Northern European Church History over 500 Years. Essays in Honour of Anders Jarlert. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. ISBN 9783631720837.
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