Increased numbers leaving after media investigation

13,300* people requested to leave the Church of Sweden in June. The normal figure for the month of June is around 3,000. The reason is thought to be the media investigations just over a month ago into parishes’ foreign travel and trips and hospitality within the Church of Sweden Abroad.

Compared with a normal month, it is largely older groups that have chosen to leave the Church of Sweden in June, with particularly high numbers from the 65-69 age group. These are people who have been members of the church for many years. According to Head of Communications at the Central Church Office in Uppsala, Gunnar Sjöberg, it means that on this occasion the number of people leaving the church can most likely be linked to the issue of confidence in the Church of Sweden.

“We are taking this sudden decline extremely seriously. Although it was only 40 or so of the Church of Sweden’s almost 1,400 parishes that were highlighted in the media, and although we can see that in some cases reporting was heavily biased, the investigations have identified deficiencies that we are now working to overcome.

“The Church of Sweden at national level is now carrying out a review, with the help of an external law firm, into travel and hospitality for the Church of Sweden Abroad. This should be completed in August. We are also conducting a special review of the working environment at the Church of Sweden in London. With regard to parishes’ travel, discussions are under way in the diocese on the best way to support and offer advice to parishes ahead of any trips abroad.

“We have been pleased in recent years to see that several investigations pursued independently of one another have shown increased confidence in the Church of Sweden and in all the excellent work being carried out in the parishes. Our position is to be open and transparent as regards media scrutiny. The challenge for us is to learn from what has emerged in these current investigations in order to be even better at living up to the trust that people place in us,” says Gunnar Sjöberg.

Meanwhile he stresses that it is too soon to draw any conclusions about the June figures for the number of people leaving the church.

“We are in the process of conducting our own confidence survey, which will be completed in August. We will analyse the material together with the leaving statistics in order to gain an overall picture of the situation.”

*NB! These figures are preliminary. Member statistics for 2016 are compiled after the end of the year and reported in March 2017.

CONTACT:
Gunnar Sjöberg, Head of Communications at the Central Church Office in Uppsala, can be reached via the Church of Sweden’s duty press service: +46 (0)18-169475.