Margit Sahlin
1914–2003.
Priest, theologian, writer.
Margit Sahlin was one of Sweden's first three female priests and ordained in 1960 when the Swedish church, through a Council decision, let women become priests. A new law was made in 1958 and came into force in 1959.
Prior to that she had acquired a broad academic background and a doctorate in Romance languages about the Church dance and the Folk dance song, La Carole médiévale et ses rapports avec l´Église (the medieval dance and its contact with the church). Already in 1940, she is interdisciplinary in her dissertation.
Sahlin took the initiative to the formation of Katharina foundation and was its director for a total of 34 years. The foundation is described as a meeting place for dialogue between church and society.
Sahlin was secretary of the Swedish Church's central Council in 1945-1970 and was appointed honorary Doctorate of Theology in Uppsala in 1978.
In the 1970s she was also vicar of the Engelbrekt parish in Stockholm. She performed a pioneering work through the formation of the Diocese Women's council around the country and its umbrella organization ecclesiastical Women's Council (today women in the Swedish church). In 1995 she received the Equality Prize from the Minister for Equality Marita Ulvskog.
Among the several books Margit Sahlin has written are Evangelisation (1947), Man and Woman in the Church of Christ (1950), The Service of the Word in a Changed World (1959), Time for Rethinking (1980), With Peter (1982), Hurdan is God (1985), The Secretive Book. Reading the Bible Today (1994) and Jesus. The Secret of God (1999).
The Margit Sahlin Academy was established in 2015 and is the platform for exchange of views between science, society, culture, and Church in Margit Sahlin's spirit.
Burial site: 0154-0137
Image description: Margit Sahlin at her summer house in Dalarna, unknown year. Photo: Ulf Palm. [The image is cropped]
Click here for an uncropped image
