Thorkild Grosbøll

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Thorkild Grosbøll (born February 27, 1948) is a parish priest in the Church of Denmark. Grosbøll has said that he does not believe in God, but he still wants to serve as a priest. While quoting just these two views out of context is an oversimplification of his position, they have resulted in Grosbøll being at the centre of a controversy among Christians, mostly in Denmark.

After various other services, Grosbøll became parish priest in Taarbæk June 1991.

In the spring of 2003, Thorkild Grosbøll published the book En Sten i Skoen (A Stone in the Shoe), resulting in very limited reactions, though he wrote in it that he does not believe in God. On May 23, 2003, the Danish newspaper Weekendavisen published an interview with Grosbøll, in which he repeated statements from his book, in particular that he does not believe in a creating or upholding God.

After a public outcry, the bishop in Elsinore, Lise-Lotte Rebel, started talks with the priest on June 3, 2003 about his faith. Simultaneously, she relieved him of his duties as parish priest in Taarbæk as she believed Grosbøll had failed in four accounts:

• neglected the creed of the Church of Denmark.
• subverted the respectability of the service.
• ignored orders.
• created profound confusion about the Church of Denmark.

On July 23, 2003, Thorkild Grosbøll was allowed to continue his service as a parish priest in Taarbæk, subject to special surveillance by the bishop.

On June 3, 2004, Grosbøll was instructed to resign no later than June 4, or he would be suspended. On June 7, 2004, the chairman of the elected parish council in Taarbæk, Lars Heilesen, informed the parish about the situation in the church in Taarbæk. On June 10, 2004, Rebel again relieved Thorkild Grosbøll of his duties.

During all these events, the parish community in Taarbæk stood by Thorkild Grosbøll. There was an animated public debate, occasionally fuelled by statements from Grosbøll like: "God belongs in the past. He is actually so old fashioned that I am baffled by modern people believing in his existence. I am thoroughly fed up with empty words about miracles and eternal life." (Ude og Hjemme, week 24, 2005). At the same time he maintained that the bishop and the press misunderstood him, taking quotes from his sermons out of context.

July 12, 2004 the Ministry of Ecclesiastical Affairs transferred the case to an ecclesiastical court. The first stage of this process, a hearing of the involved parties, was concluded February 2005. On May 11 2005, the ministry relieved bishop Rebel from her surveillance of Thorkild Grosbøll, and transferred the surveillance to the bishop in Roskilde, Jan Lindhardt. Thereby the ministry put the ecclesiastical court case on hold. May 20, 2006 Grosbøll confirmed his priestly vows before Lindhardt in the presence of witnesses and by his signature, and was allowed to serve again as parish priest, but was instructed not to talk to the press.

Thus the case was put to rest till autumn 2007, where it was decided that the surveillance was to be transferred to the bishop in Århus, Kjeld Holm, by May 1, 2008, when Lindhart would retire. As announced shortly after this decision, Grosbøll retired early when he turned 60 in February 2008.