Gunnar Rosendal

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Gunnar Rosendal, born 4 April 1897 in Grevie parish, died 26 December 1988 in Kristianstad, was a Swedish Lutheran pastor, Doctor of Theology and parish priest of Osby. Through his books promoting High Church Lutheran theology and spirituality, especially by "Kyrklig förnyelse" (1935), he became a leading and disputed figure of the Catholic movement in the Church of Sweden. As other examples of his books can be mentioned "Den apostoliska tron" 1-2, (1948-51), which is a complete work of high church doctrine in the form of a devotional book and "Vårt katolska arv" (1956) (=our catholic inheritance). Rosendal succeeded to get much publicity by his good sense of humour and his exciting and eccentric personality (he was e.g. commonly called "Father Gunnar of Osby") and thus he managed to popularizise high church theology by his own example in Osby parish, which became a model for liturgical piety and practise for High Mass and daily office. He had many contacts to the liturgical movement in the Roman Catholic church, especially in Benedictine monasteries and knew personally many theologians of the liturgical and ecumenical movement, like Pius Parsch and Paul Couturier. He also had plenty of contacts to Anglo-Catholicism in the Church of England e.g. to Dom Gregory Dix. Rosendal often liked to show himself as catholic as possible, but he was rooted also in the theology of 17th century Lutheran orthodoxy, which he knew well. Due to recommendation of Bo Giertz, he started to read books of Carl Olof Rosenius, which made a lasting impression. Rosendal used himself the neo-thomistic paradigm and resisted all kinds of liberal theology as well as the Dialectical theology of Karl Barth. Rosendal was one of the theologians that worked for the foundation of the International League for Apostolic Faith and Order (ILAFO), which later became the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches. In Sweden his influence can be seen in the foundation of the high church organisation arbetsgemenskapen Kyrklig Förnyelse (aKF), inspired by his book "Kyrklig förnyelse".

[edit] Sources

"Gunnar Rosendal - en banbrytare för kyrklig förnyelse" , edited by V.-A. Grönqvist. Artos 2004. (with summaries in English - Gunnar Rosendal - a pioneer for church renewal in Church of Sweden.)
"Fader Gunnar i Osby - En alldeles ovanlig präst", by Staffan Ljungman 1997.