Uniting Church in Sweden

Uniting Church in Sweden (Swedish: Equmeniakyrkan) is a unitedProtestant denomination in Sweden.

It was established on 4 June 2011 by the merger of the United Methodist Church, Baptist Union of Sweden, and Mission Covenant Church of Sweden.^[2]

Initially the name of the unified denomination was the Joint Future Church (Swedish: Gemensam framtid), before the name was changed during a conference in Karlstad on 11 May 2013 to the present Uniting Church in Sweden or Equmeniakyrkan in Swedish.^[3]

The Uniting Church in Sweden consists of about 640 local congregations in Sweden, which collectively have about 59,000 members. The church serves around 130,000 people as of 2021.^[4]

Since 2007, the merging denominations also had a common youth organization called Equmenia. The intention to form the new denomination was made in the respective conferences in 2008, 2009 and 2010 before the final decision was made in 2011.

Since the inaugural meeting in 2011, the denomination's president was Ann-Sofie Lasell, who was succeeded in 2014 by Tomas Bjöersdorff and in 2017 by Susanne Rodmar. The current president, Kerstin Torkelsson Enlund, was elected in 2020. The church conference in Linköping in 2012 elected Lasse Svensson as church leader and Olle Alkholm and Sofia Camnerin as deputy church leaders.^[5] All three were re-elected at the 2016 church conference in Stockholm. At the 2020 church conference, Lasse Svensson was re-elected as church leader, and Karin Wiborn and Joakim Hagerius were newly elected as deputy church leaders.^[6]

La Iglesia Unida en Suecia dirige el University College Stockholm (anteriormente Escuela de Teología de Estocolmo) ^{[ 7 ]} y junto con Equmenia dirige Härnösand Folk High School, Sjövik Folk High School, ^{[ 8 ]} Karlskoga Folk High School, ^{[ 9 ]} Bromma Folk High School y Södra Vätterbygdens folkhögskola . ^{[ 10 ]} Junto con la Misión de la Alianza Sueca dirige la organización de ayuda Diakonia . ^{[ 11 ]} La Iglesia Unida en Suecia es una organización miembro de la asociación de estudios Bilda. ^{[ 12 ]} Junto con otras denominaciones y organizaciones cristianas, dirige la organización de trabajo social sin fines de lucro Hela människan . ^{[ 13 ]}

Los acuerdos ecuménicos que existían previamente entre la Iglesia de Suecia , la Iglesia del Pacto Misionero de Suecia y la Iglesia Metodista Unida de Suecia se han adaptado desde 2016 a un acuerdo similar entre la Iglesia de Suecia y la Iglesia Unida de Suecia. ^{[ 14 ]}