SWEDEN'S first openly lesbian bishop Eva Brunne has proposed removing all signs of the cross in Stockholm and putting down markings showing the direction to Mecca for the benefit of Muslim worshippers as part of a move to attract adherents of other faiths.  

Bishop Brunne, 61, is the first openly lesbian bishop of a mainstream church in the world and the first bishop of the Church of Sweden to be in a registered same-sex partnership. Currently the Bishop of Stockholm, she has a young son with her wife and fellow lesbian priest Gunilla Linden. 

Under recent proposals put forward by Bishop Brunne, the Seamen’s Mission Church in Stockholm’s eastern dockyards would be designated as a multi-faith centre. She held a meeting there earlier this year and challenged the local priest to explain what he would do if a ship’s crew came into port who were not Christian but wanted to pray.

 Calling Muslim guests to the church angels, the bishop later took to her official blog to explain that removing Christian symbols from the church and preparing the building for Muslim prayer does not make a priest any less a defender of the faith. She added that rather, to do any less would make one stingy towards people of other faiths.

 Bishop Brunne added that after all, airports and hospitals already have multi-faith prayer rooms and converting the dockyard church would only bring it up to speed. However, her proposals have attracted fierce opposition from more traditional Catholic clergymen across Sweden.

Father Patrik Pettersson, one of the priests in her diocese and active in the same parish as the Seaman’s mission church has hit back in a blog of his own, complaining there is no way you could equate a consecrated church with a prayer room. Calling the bishop’s words theologically unthinking, he asked what was to be done with crucifixes screwed to the walls and heavy items such as baptismal fonts

“Ignoring the rhetorical murmuring, the only argument Bishop Eva really put forward in support of her view is hospitality.  How do you respond to that? Not much of a basis for discussion, as one colleague put it, as the theological, ecclesiological, pastoral and working issues are left untouched," Father Pettersson added.

 As an independent mission the Seaman's church operates outside of the diocese and so the bishop has no authority there, leading one church director to add that Bishop Brunne's words were her business alone. Across Sweden, the upper echelons of the Church of Sweden, much like other national churches across Europe, seem to be fully invested in the diversity mission. 

 Kiki Wetterberg, the local priest added: “I have no problem with Muslim or Hindu sailors coming here and praying but I believe that we are a Christian church, so we keep the symbols. If I visit a mosque I do not ask them to take down their symbols as it’s my choice to go in there."