Conversion StoriesLutheran

Prof. Alf Härdelin & Ulf Samuelsson: Former Lutherans from Sweden

January 17, 2011 No Comments

In this episode from Sweden, Marcus sits down with Professor Alf Hardelin and Ulf Samuelsson.  Prof. Alf Härdelin is a professor in the Theology Department of Uppsala University while Ulf Samuelsson is a Director of Church Music and music consultant for the Catholic Diocese of Stockholm, Sweden.

The eldest of five children to a Lutheran pastor and a mother who was a nurse, Professor Hardelin began his life in the rural northern part of Sweden before his family moved to the outskirts of Stockholm.  It was not until college that academics began to interest him.  He began to study theology, leading him to ordination in the Church of Sweden and serving four years in a congregation.  But his academic studies continued, bringing the Professor to England where, in his heart, he became Catholic, under the branch theory.  But after reading The Spirit of Catholicism by Fr. Karl Adam, he was called to conversion, being received into the Catholic Church in 1963.  He and Marcus discuss some of the early history of Catholicism in Sweden, some 500 years before the Reformation.

Ulf shares his story of conversion and lifelong love of music.  He and Marcus discuss the musical comparisons of Swedish Lutheran and Catholic liturgies as well as reflecting on the growing trend to the return of Gregorian Chant in the Masses.