Lewi Pethrus

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Lewi Pethrus

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Petrus Lewi Pethrus (11 March 1884 - 4 September 1974 was a Swedish Pentecostal minister who played a decisive role in the formation and development of the Pentecostal movement in his country. From 1911 to 1958, he pastored the Philadelphia Church, whose membership grew to more than 6,000, in Stockholm, and continued to be regarded as a leader of Swedish Pentecostals long after his official retirement.

Born in Västra Tunhem in Älvsborg county, Pethrus worked in a variety of manual jobs from the age of ten before being apprenticed to a shoe factory in 1899. That year, he was baptized in the Baptist Church in Vänersborg. After immigrating to Norway in 1900, he became co-pastor of the Arendal Baptist Church in 1902, along with Adolf Mildes. He started speaking in tongues, believed by Pentecostals to be evidence of having received the baptism of the Holy Spirit, after a series of meetings in Lillestrand. He claimed that the experience happened to him spontaneously and that he did not understand at the time what was happening to him.

Pethrus became pastor of a small Baptist Church in Bengtsfors, Dalsland, in 1903, but did not seek formal theological training until 1904, when he enrolled at the Betel Seminary in Stockholm. He was later to say that his training was detrimental to his faith. Exposure to the writings of liberal philosopher Viktor Rydberg temporarily undermined his faith in the divinity of Jesus, but claimed to have regained it after meeting Jesus personally in a vision.

After graduating from seminary, Pethrus completed his compulsory military service at Axvalla Hed, Västergötland, in the autumn of 1906. That year, he became pastor of the Lidköping Baptist Church.

Pethrus joined the Pentecostal movement in 1907 after meeting the Norwegian Pentecostal minister Thomas Ball Barratt in Oslo. It was then that the doctrine of the Baptism in the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues became clear to him, he claimed: "From that moment I was part of the Pentecostal Revival".

Pethrus became pastor of the Seventh Baptist Church in Stockholm in 1910, and of the Philadelphia Church in 1911. In 1913, the year in which he married Lydia Danielsson, his church was expelled from the Swedish Baptist Union because of disagreements about the theological nature of holy communion. This was the beginning of a separate Pentecostal movement in Sweden. The Philadelphia Church started a bible school in 1915 and a weekly magazine, "The Gospel Herald," in 1916. The same year, the church sent its first missionaries, Samuel and Lina Nyström, to Brazil.

Pethrus sponsored the founding of a high school in 1942 and Dagen, a daily newspaper, in 1945. A credit fund was established in 1952 and a radio station, IBRA Radio in Tangiers, Morocco, in 1955. That year, the Philadelphia Church hosted the Pentecostal World Conference.

Pethrus resigned from the pastorate on 7 September 1958. He continued preaching as an iterant preacher, and established the Lewi Pethrus Trust for Philanthropic Endeavour in 1959. In 1964, he spearheaded the founding of Sweden's Christian Democratic Party. His wife Lydia died on 30 December 1966. A year before his own death, he was made a Knight Commander of the Vasa Order. His last sermon was delivered at the annual Nyhemsvecka Pentecostal convention in 1974, shortly before his death on 4 September.

In 2001, Per Olov Enquist published a novel about his life, Lewi's Journey (ISBN 1585673412), which is in part about Lewi's interactions with Sven Lidman.