Diocese of Lund


The Diocese of Lund is a former Latin Catholic bishopric and archbishopric with see in Lund, southern Scandinavia. At the time of the Danish Reformation, it became a diocese in the Lutheran Church of Denmark, and since the signing of the treaty of Roskilde in 1658 it has been the southernmost diocese in the Lutheran Church of Sweden.
The territory of the present Lutheran diocese corresponds to the provinces of Blekinge and Skåne. There are 217 parishes within the diocese, the largest number in any of the dioceses of the Church of Sweden. The present bishop of Lund, Johan Tyrberg, succeeded Antje Jackelén in 2014.

Catholic History

The Latin Diocese of Lund was formed in 1060, in what was then Danish territory, by separation from the Diocese of Roskilde, then both suffragans of the German Archdiocese of Hamburg-Bremen. The provinces of Skåne and Halland were under its jurisdiction.
The two other provinces of the Scanian lands, Blekinge and Bornholm, were, on the other hand, initially under the jurisdiction of the nearby Diocese of Dalby. At the earliest in 1067, the Dalby diocese was however merged into the Lund diocese.
In 1104, the diocese became the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Lund with its own ecclesiastical province, initially covering Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Norway got its own Archbishop of Nidaros in 1152, and Sweden its Archbishop of Uppsala in 1164, although the Swedish archbishop remained for a long time nominally subordinate to the Archbishop of Lund.
In January 1553, the Catholic see was suppressed, never to be restored. Instead, Sweden came under the vast Germany-based Apostolic Vicariate of Nordic Missions, until 1793 the Apostolic Prefecture of Sweden was created from it, soon promoted to Apostolic Vicariate, on 1953.06.29 promoted as Roman Catholic Diocese of Stockholm, still covering the whole country.
Lund's former Catholic cathedral see became a Protestant church.

Lutheran diocese

At the time of the Reformation in 1536, the office of archbishop was abolished in Denmark and Lund was demoted to an ordinary diocese. Initially, the Lutheran bishops were styled superintendents.
In 1658 Lund, together with the Scanian lands, fell under the government of Sweden, and Lund became subordinate to the Archbishop of Uppsala.