pÅ svenska History of the parish
Our friend and member in the congregation, Dr John Stanley Martin (R.I.P) has written the articles below.
Scandinavians at worship in Melbourne:
1. The foundation of the United Scandinavian Congregation
Unannounced, like a prophet from the wilderness, there arrived in Melbourne in early 1880 Pastor Lauritz Carlsen, who had come to preach the Gospel to the scattered Scandinavians in various Australian ports. This Norwegian pastor from a parish in Alexandra in Minnesota had been working for some years as a seamen's pastor in San Francisco. He visited Australia for a few months over a number of years.
It was in Melbourne that Carlsen gained the greatest response, where, on the 6th June 1883, a group the 16 people, mainly Norwegians with a few Swedes and Danes, met in the house in Port Melbourne, belonging to a Swede called Lauritzen. At this gathering all present unanimously agreed that Our Saviour's Scandinavian Evangelical Lutheran Church should be formally established. From then on services were held in the Mechanics' Institute in William Street in the city.
During Carlsen’s absence each year the services were ably conducted by a Swedish lay-preacher, G. A. Forsell, who worked in a blood and bone factory. Each year Carlsen worked diligently for a few months in Melbourne, but in 1887 he was recalled to his parish in Minnesota.
Two years later the Norwegian church authorities sent Pastor Søren Pedersen, who arrived late in 1889. His arrival in Melbourne had the effect of a thunderbolt. Deeply influenced by the revival which had swept through Norway since the 1870s, he thought that the Melbourne Scandinavians were under the grip of the devil and it was his duty to save the flock from the evil influences around them, - drink, gambling and worldliness. A passionate and forceful preacher, he launched a frontal attack on the thitherto successful and popular Danish, Norwegian and Swedish clubs. Therefore he established a support-system of organisations which could satisfy all personal and social needs of the Scandinavian faithful - a youth group, a temperance society, a library, and in 1892, when the depression hit the city, an employment agency.
During the depression of the 1890s the solid nucleus of the congregation found it impossible to pay their part of their minister's stipend and he returned home in March 1895.
Meanwhile, the Church Council contacted the relevant authorities in both Norway and Sweden and the Swedes offered them a better deal. Consequently in December 1896 Pastor Karl Hultmark arrived with his family to take up the pastorate.
From the beginning Hultmark was viewed with suspicion from the Norwegian nucleus of the congregation. Even if the church were "United Scandinavian" by name, it had been principally built up by Norwegian initiative, was financed by Norwegian money, and was maintained by a mainly Norwegian lay-leadership, and attended by Norwegians. Against the background of tension at home in Norway concerning the union with Sweden, it was inevitable that any Swedish minister would be unacceptable to the Norwegians in the congregation. Moreover, Hultmark, a kindly man, somewhat dry and rather reserved, lacked the charisma of a Pedersen and was a staunch Swedish nationalist. A local wit claimed that blue and yellow blood flowed through his veins.
A disused Congregational Church in West Melbourne was on the market for £2,000. The building fund was currently £850, and Otto Rømcke, a popular leader in the Norwegian community, offered to make up the difference. In February 1898, the Scandinavians gathered under their own roof for the first time to praise their Maker.
During the text two years, the Norwegians gradually dropped away. In March 1900, the dynamic Norwegian chairman of the church council, A. T. Schreuder, resigned, and only the pastor could be prevailed upon to take on the office.
The fact that the congregation was changing from one mainly of Norwegian to one of Swedish initiative was well in evidence in the last years of the nineteenth century. The minister, nevertheless, was disappointed that it was he who had unwittingly alienated most of the Norwegians in the congregation.
2. The Melbourne congregation becomes Swedish
When the twentieth century began the situation in Our Saviour's United Scandinavian Evangelical Lutheran Church in North Melbourne was tense.
At the annual congregational meeting in January 1903, there were three vacancies on the church council. Of the five nominees three were Swedes and two Norwegians. When the three Swedes were elected, the Norwegians present were so incensed that they all rose and stormed out of the meeting. Nevertheless, Hultmark laboured on faithfully and diligently.
In 1905, when Norway won its independence from the union with Sweden, the overjoyed Norwegians in Melbourne rejoiced in the Norwegian Club, but the Swedes followed the events at home in a spirit of dejection. The Swedish Club discussed whether Sweden had declined and its greatness was a thing of the past. Nevertheless, Hultmark wrote in his annual report that he "sometimes had evidence that the work has not been in vain".
It was in this gloomy atmosphere that a message arrived in November 1906 that the Most Noble the Count Birger Mörner would arrive in Melbourne early in December on his way to his new posting in Sydney as the first professional Swedish diplomat in Australia.. This communication had an electrifying effect on the community. On the evening of the 4th December fifty Swedes gathered for a dinner organised by the Swedish Club in Nisson's Exchange Hotel. The participants long remembered that splendid evening when Melbourne put on its most spectacular smörgåsbord ever. But the excellence of the food and wines paled in significance next to the patriotic fervour the event generated. Here in their midst stood a living representative of Sweden, and now the Melbourne Swedish community was able to rekindle its tarnished national spirit.
When His Nobility rose to speak, the company sat in hushed expectation. In superb oratory the count presented a glorious panorama of Sweden through space and time. All the heroic personages and national visual symbols were evoked.
The participants of the feast left in a state of euphoria. The Consul-General had inspired them with a new confidence. From now on there were open discussions in Melbourne of the possibility of going their own way and founding a Swedish Church out of the ruins of the United Scandinavian Congregation, strongly supported by Mörner. .
On the 5th November 1906 a meeting was convened at the Swedish Club in Russell Street to discuss the possibility of establishing a Swedish Church in Melbourne. Mörner came from Sydney to chair the meeting and gave the project his whole-hearted support. The 22 people present agreed unanimously to the proposal and set up a committee of seven to take further steps. Mörner ceremoniously closed the meeting with the words from the Uppsala Meeting of 1593 which had confirmed the confessional basis of the Church of Sweden as being Lutheran, "Now has Sweden become as one man, and all have one Lord and God".
The committee quickly found a suitable site in Clarendon Street in South Melbourne at a price of £364. Bazaars and social evenings were organised and even a concert was held in the Melbourne Town Hall, starring Mme Agnes Janson, the famous Swedish opera singer who had taken up a position in the Conservatorium at the University of Melbourne. Soon the amount of £140 was raised.
Hultmark wrote to Consul General Rømcke of Norway to request the dissolution of the United Scandinavian Congregation, for which the agreement of all interested parties was needed. Unfortunately, the reply was negative.
Back in Sweden the relevant church authority, the Evangelical National Missionary Society (Evangeliska fosterlandsstiftelsen) finally agreed to support the new development in Melbourne and offered a loan of 30,000 crowns for the erection of the building. On the 7th March the Swedish congregation was formally constituted and on the 5th September the Swedes revoked their connection with the United Scandinavian Congregation.
3. Division and reconciliation
On 17th October 1908 Sir George Turner, the Consul-General for Sweden, laid the foundation stone of the newly-built Swedish Church in Clarendon Street, South Melbourne, and expressed the desire:
"That the congregation would, within these walls, find spiritual rest and edification; that the children would receive baptism and confirmation; that loving couples would be consolidated in their love; and that, finally, when the day's striving was over, the ashes of the dead would be consecrated to the rest of the grave.
The official opening of the church and the consecration of the building took place on the 17th January in a scorching Australian summer.
Rev. Hultmark performed the ceremony with dignity, stressing in his address that the great task still lay ahead. The new church-building was but a beginning, and the vessel had to be filled with divine contents. For the occasion Magnus Lagerlöf, the organist, had composed a cantata for soprano and choir, for which the great singer, Mme Agnes Janson, was soloist.
The drama of the earlier years had vanished and life took on a new stability as routine prevailed. Instead of the storms and tempests of old, little squalls would blow up quickly and immediately abate. A pattern of operation emerged which was to continue for half a century. Three main aspects of the work developed: that of a parish church for Swedes in Melbourne and beyond, that of a seamen's mission and that of a cultural centre of Swedes.
The old building of the United Scandinavian Congregation in West Melbourne had stood empty since the virtual dissolution of the congregation. In 1913 the hostility between the national groups had subsided enough to enable the affairs of the former congregation to be wound up. The property was sold, and the proceeds split up in proportion to the original contributions. Thus 50% went to the Norwegians, 30% to the Swedes and 20% to the Danes. The Swedes used their amount to pay off the debt on their church, and the Danes and Norwegians each invested their funds for relief of distress among needy compatriots.
From the foundation of the Swedish Church until the end of the Second World War the relations between then Swedes and Norwegians in Melbourne remained cool. The Norwegians took umbrage at the Swedish policy of neutrality and things came to a head when the Swedish government allowed the Germans to transport troops by train to Norway through Sweden.
There came a thaw between Norwegians and Swedes in the post-war years. As immigrants from various Scandinavian countries began to arrive in Melbourne, they soon made their way to the Swedish Church in South Melbourne. In May 1952 Leif Frivold, the first Norwegian seamen's pastor in Melbourne arrived, and he and his Swedish colleague had equal status.
When the Swedish church moved to Toorak in 1956 it was called the Scandinavian Seamen's mission, which reflected the Swedish-Norwegian co-operation. For the next 15 years there were four successive Norwegian pastors with Melbourne as their base. Then after a gap of four years, Pastor Eivind Wremer was sent to Sydney and made visits to Melbourne. The Norwegian operation in Sydney finished in 1978.
From 1939 there were irregular services in Danish in the Swedish Church when Pastor Johannes Larsen was called to the Australian Lutheran congregation a Murtoa. From then on until 1982 he held occasional services for Danes in Melbourne, where he was given the affectionate title of “pastor emeritus of the Dane”.
Today the Swedish Church in Toorak is a home to the various Scandinavian communities, besides the programme of Swedish services and other Swedish activities, there are monthly services in Danish with various other Danish educational and social functions and Norwegian services from time to time. As well, the Icelandic national day is always celebrated at the Swedish Church. Indeed, 125 years after the foundation of the United Scandinavian Church, the ideal of Scandinavian cooperation has been achieved.
Prof. John Martin (R.I.P)