This paper studies the fragmentation and reuse of early christian monuments ("eskilstunakistor") in churches in Östergötland during the medieval period. This is found to have been done in two stages. The first stage shows a collectivization of society. Within religion the change from ancestoral cult towards the saints' cult is important as the fragments are reused like relics. During the second stage the collectivization has been fulfilled, and the reuse is instead part of the christian churches' strategy for incorporating old powerful symbols from the landscape into their own church building..

Religious education in Swedish schools aims to be as objective and non-confessional as possible. This sort of education can lead to that the different religions are presented in a way which is unfamiliar to the followers of the different religions. This problem is what I have focused on in this essay since I myself was a victim of a similar situation. As a syriac-orthodox youth I felt that my Christianity was not the same as the one presented in school. I felt that it had nothing in common with what I learned in my church, therefore I asked myself the question: Whose Christianity is being represented? Therefore I have focused on the syriac-orthodox church in this research.The purpose of my essay was to enlighten the differences between religious education in syriac-orthodox churches and Swedish community schools.

According to the directives of Lgr11, learning about Christianity should be an important part of religious education in secondary school (7th-9th grade) in Sweden. A school teacher must therefore have good knowledge of the field and of different aspects of the beliefs of the various Christian traditions.This essay is about how salvation is conceived of by two members of the laity in each of three different Christian traditions: the Syriac Orthodox Church, the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of Sweden (which is Lutheran). As a theoretical perspective for my analysis, I have chosen the official views of salvation of these three churches. That is to say, views of the members of the laity have been compared with the official views of the respective churches. It is thus a very limited qualitative study aiming at finding out how the views of the laity conform to the official creed concerning salvation and whether there are any differences here between the churches.

There are about 3 500 churches protected under the Heritage Conservation Act in Sweden today. These churches still belong to living congregations that want to be able to adapt them to the needs of today, just like people have done throughout history. But since the churches are protected, the congregations have to apply for a permit and that is not always given. This can lead to frustration, and you can sometimes hear representatives of the church express the view that antiquarian authorities are enemies that oppose the church. On the other hand we have the antiquarian authorities that, in a way, have to act as advocates for generations to come and make sure that there is a cultural heritage preserved for them when they grow up.

This essay deals with the weak and unstable urbanization process of the town Falkenberg. The aim has been to explore how a new town could be established just a kilometre away from the town (Old) Falkenberg and what kind of meaning the town had in relationship to the towns Halmstad and Varberg. This was made through the study of the political situation in Denmark and Sweden during the 15th century and through a comparison of the town churches. The archaeological material of Falkenberg is very small and thus I had to trust the available historical literature about the town.Not much of the oldest history of the town is known, but a conflict between the landed aristocratic family Thott and the king Kristian I in Denmark has been interpreted as a reason to the establishing of the town. In conclusion the survey showed that the king probably established New Falkenberg in purpose to limit the trading possibilities of Thott and to, at the same time, increase his own power in the district.

Energy efficiency is today more important than ever, mainly due to the high energy prices and the approaching climate changes. Heating of buildings is an essential area within energy efficiency. Many buildings are old and were built at a time when the energy prices were low and the term ?energy efficiency? was unheard of. By applying today?s broad range of energy saving actions on these old, and thereby often, heating ineffective buildings, this area has a large potential in reducing energy consumption and costs.Churches and chapels are generally old buildings with, in many cases, ineffective heating systems and therefore consume much more energy than needed.

This paper studies the fragmentation and reuse of early christian monuments ("eskilstunakistor") in churches in Östergötland during the medieval period. This is found to have been done in two stages. The first stage shows a collectivization of society. Within religion the change from ancestoral cult towards the saints' cult is important as the fragments are reused like relics. During the second stage the collectivization has been fulfilled, and the reuse is instead part of the christian churches' strategy for incorporating old powerful symbols from the landscape into their own church building..

The purpose of this paper has been to identify which modern search functions user of Smartphones are using, why just these functions are being used, and how they have affected the way users acquire information. Modern search functions in this paper means searches that are not based on text, i.e. ways to search for information by other means than writing something into a search field. To identify this, two studies were conducted, one with a questionnaire being distributed with the help of Google Docs through social networks, and one with four interviews with users of modern search functions for Smartphones. The study showed that even though 76 % of Smartphone users are aware of at least one modern search function, only 29% uses one on a regular basis.

The aim of this essay is to investigate the murals in the church of Arbrå, what they portrait and how they can be linked to medieval typology as described in Biblia Pauperum (BP), the Poor Man?s Bible. The aim is also to find out what the purpose was to paint medieval churches and what the function of the paintings was. Arbrå Church was painted around 1520-1530, and almost all of the motifs from the Old Testament can be directly traced back to BP as can one motif from the New Testament. Together these paintings represent most of the important events which make out the foundation of the Christian Cult.

Uppsats för avläggande av filosofie kandidatexamen iKulturvård, Bebyggelseantikvariskt program15 hpInstitutionen för kulturvårdGöteborgs universitet2013:22.

Uppsats för avläggande av filosofie kandidatexamen iKulturvård, Trädgårdens hantverk och design, 22, 5 hp, 2014.

The Purpose of this essay is to seek an answer to whether or not a conflict exists between priests of the Assyrian Church, the Syrian Orthodox Church and the Coptic Church in contemporary Swedish society, as well as to examine the environment between the three. The theological dissimilarities will be studied (from a historical standpoint), along with the interviewed participants views on the division in Christianity which will be presented also. I choose to interview six priests/chorbishops who live and work in Sweden, and the result was analyzed according to the senior professor of peace- and conflict, Peter Wallensteen?s theories on conflict and conflict resolution, where important issues are laid out to identify the core problem, and theological differences are discussed and compared from a union perspective.The result of the interviews illustrate a clear response that the participants experience a lack of functioning collaborations (from the Assyrians Church view, a collaboration is absent from the Syrian Orthodox Church and the Coptic Church, and vice versa) and most of the participants experience negative consequences from the divide in churches, as they strive for unity in Christianity as a whole. The theological differences between the churches proves not to be as significant as expected, the actual predicament lies partly in language-and phrase division along with a general rejection of each other?s interpretations.

What is the Church? This question has been asked in many times and places. In Sweden, it seems asif there's a general identity crisis among the churches. It seems like many churches don't know whythey exist, or at least they have a very vague understanding of the full meaning of the Church.Some 50 years ago, we had a new encounter in Sweden. Immigrants from Orthodoxcountries came to live here, and they brought their church and tradition with them.

Uppsats för avläggande av filosofie kandidatexamenKulturvård, Konservatorprogrammet15 hpInstitutionen för kulturvårdGöteborgs universitet2011.

The globalization of political and economic processes is a growing moral concern for theologians and political philosophers alike. My thesis aims to outline, analyze, and compare church studies of globalization with global theories of justice.To do this, I draw upon recent studies of globalization made by the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the Lutheran World Federation (LWF). The WCC and LWF are two global reaching church organizations. They have a common aim of uniting churches for ecumenical dialogue and are involved in social, economic, political, and ecological questions. The WCC and LWF analyze globalization by applying biblical and theological principles from the Christian tradition.