”En allians av något slag” : Förändrade relationer mellan Svenska kyrkan och Church of England. 1909–1954

Sammanfattning: With a certain definition of ”networks”, “trust” and “change” this thesis makes new inroads into the historiography of bilateral church relations. Applied to the ambitions of establishing a deeper connection between the Church of Sweden and the Church of England, it’s aim is to show how a social network of leaders – mostly bishops and priests – from both churches came to be the formative centre of what can only be described as an informal but still legitimate relationship that eventually would lead to a formal ”alliance of some sort”. According to ecclesiastical law, howewer, neither the Resolutions nor the ecumenical agreement did apply to the Church of England without formal acceptance in the Convocations of Canterbury and York. No such acceptance was given until 1954. Despite this, the relationship which from a Swedish point of view was early described as a matter of established right and custom – sedvanerätt – needed to be regulated. This left this small elite group of church leaders in a rather delicate situation. Without the proper measures in place, the normative centre of the relationship had to be found in what I have called “the inner circle” which throughout the whole period largely had to act informally in order to regulate how these closer relations should progress.