Parishes of Sweden

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Parishes of Sweden are subdivisions within the Church of Sweden that historicaly were called socken but nowadays are called församling. But they were also a local administrative subdivision of civil government also called socken and up until the 1900s with common geographical borders as the religious parish.

After the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century the church also became a state church and as such was charged with administrative tasks like as keeping the civic registry. Eventually religious and civil matters became separated in two entities within the same district (in 1863); the religious congregation (församling) and the civil parish (socken). The civil parish handled municipal tasks, but the congregation still retained a significant share of influence, including responsibility for schools.

The historical civil parishes (socken) are still used in statistics and should not be confused with the religious parishes (församling) that in the latest years, especially since the separation of church and state in 2000, have seen major geographical changes.