Herrens hus och himmelens port : En studie om kyrkobyggnaden som ecklesiologisk symbol i några svenska kyrkoinvigningspredikningar

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this essay is to investigate the ecclesiological meaning of church buildings in the context of the Church of Sweden. In order to investigate views of ecclesiology and church self-understanding through history, based on the church building as a symbol, I have chosen to study how church buildings are presented in several Swedish sermons. In this essay I analyze and compare four sermons given on the occasion of church dedications by four different preachers from four different centuries in the history of the Church of Sweden. The sermons were given by the following bishops: Andreas Johannis Prytz (1633), Esaias Tegnér (1825), Yngve Brilioth (1939) and Per Eckerdal (2012). The main research question of this essay is: What ecclesiological meaning has been ascribed to church buildings in Swedish sermons? My conclusions are three in number. Firstly, I have determined that in all of the sermons, the function of the church is to gather people for worship. Worshippers are a prerequisite for the church building to be called a church. Secondly, the Temple of Jerusalem is an ecclesiological symbol for the church building in all of the sermons. The Temple of Jerusalem is a biblical archetype for churches. Thirdly, the sacredness of the church building, its status as a holy place and the house of God, is a recurring concept with three of the preachers while the most recent preacher expresses a different perspective.