VIKING'S NEW FAITH

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 120, 16 November 1929, Page 20

VIKING'S NEW FAITH

.CHRISTIAN CONVERSION

Sweden, now a thoroughly.Protestant country, has recently been the object of a pilgrimage from all parts of Europe. . These activities arc- duo;"': to the fact that eleven hundred years ago St. Ahsgarius, a Benedictino monk from the monastery of. Corbey, on the River YVeser, in Germany, was sent by King Lews the Pious to: Birka, then capital of Sweden, to preach the Christian faith tp tho heathen Viking (states an overseas paper.) ' ••'•■. . ; • Birka, once a nourishing Swedish city, but now a peaceful and rural farming island district, was founded about the year 790 A.D., on the island of Bjoerkoe, in the Lake Maelar,'. in Central Sweden. Here St. Ansgariua got a' courteous reception, ; and was allowed to. preach- freely, the-"new dictrin'e"; he baptised some heathen Swedes, even the governor of the royal city, and built a church,'the foundations of which can be traced even "to-day* St. Ansgarius - visited Birka twice, but. after his death .the; Christianised/Swedes' forgot their Christian doctrine" and continued, to., worship. .Wotan. . When, in the eleventh century"dlaf, the first baptised Swedish King, came to,power he found Birka quite heathen,-and removed the citizens to Sigtuna, where ■'they had:to adopt the Christian faith. Later tho Eoyal capital was finally removed to Stockholm. - ■-■:■ :. Birka is easily reached by steamer from Stockholm^.-in two hours through the - winding lake labyrinth :of the Maelar lake,;arid five or six thousand peqple,; among : them niatiy Roman Catholics from abroad, annually go to the Island of ;Bjp.erkoe.to visit the remains of past grandeilr. A'memorial chapelis to be'built on the spot where the Christian faith; gained-its first foothold'in Sweden.-" ...