Time stands still for no one – or out with the old, in with the new!

In the 1960s. Sweden was swept by the great modernisation fever. Out with the old, in with the new, and in town after town, city after city, old historical quarters were demolished to be replaced by high rises in glittering glass and steel.

A lot of what was ripped out was squalid—housing with no indoor plumbing or electricity, houses that leaned this way and that. The city planners and architects were obsessed with giving the new generation of Swedes access to housing tat came with toilets and showers, efficient kitchens and central heating. No more wood burners, no more smelly lanterns or tallow candles—Sweden was a budding industrial superpower and our workers deserved to live in light and hygienic conditions.

It is hard to argue with the intentions—but undoubtedly some of that tearing out resulted in many, many babies being thrown out with the bathwater… (metaphorically. I am NOT aware of any IRL babies being jettisoned out into the unknow due to all that demolition)

In Stockholm, an area called Klara was earmarked for a major revamp. Blocks of old housing were torn down to make room for the future. And looming over all this destruction was the parish church, Klara Kyrka.

Klara Kyrka was built in the 16th century on the site of a medieval nunnery, St Clara Priory of the Poor Clares. The priory was founded by Magnus Birgersson in the 13th century, and one of his daughters, Rikissa, was placed with the nuns at the age of six with the understanding that at some point she would be the abbess. I am happy to report that yes, Rikissa did become abbess.

The years rolled by, and in the early 16th century the abbess was one Anna Leuhausen. At the time, the Swedes were at war with the Danes, but despite inspiring leadership from ladies like Kristina Gyllenstierna, the Danes, led by Kristian II, had the upper hand.

Abbess Anna was a Danish loyalist and betrayed numerous Swedes attempting to flee by hiding in the nunnery before slipping off into the night. Not nice—well, according to us Swedes. The abbess was probably in part motivated by issues of faith: she and her family were fervent Catholics, as was the Danish king. The Swedes, however, leaned towards the Lutheran teachings—probably specifically because the Danes didn’t. Some years later, Gustav Vasa vanquished the Danes and one of the first things he did was dissolve St Clara priory, some say in revenge of Abbess Anna’s treachery.

Anyway: in the late 16th century, Gustav Vasa’s son, Johan III, ordered a new church to be built. And so Klara Kyrka came to be, a massive brick structure that today sports the second highest church tower in Sweden and Scandinavia. Some details from the old priory had been saved and were reused, but mostly, Klara Kyrka was a proud, new Lutheran church (Johan III had a tolerant approach to Catholicism—his son and heir, Sigismund Vasa of Poland and Sweden was raised a Catholic. Sweden as a whole, however, was somewhat fanatically Lutheran, which is why Sigismund would lose Sweden to his very, very, very Lutheran uncle, Karl IX)

The Klara parish was to be afflicted by a terrible fire in 1751. For days, Stockholm had suffered strong gusts of wind, causing major problems for all the boats that trafficked the wide expanses of water that separated the various islands that make up Stockholm. At midday on June 8, the church bells began to sound the alarm, and the fire flags (triangular, bright red flags) were hoisted to snap in the strong wind. It did not take long for the fire to reach the church. Soon, the entire building was engulfed. The heat was such that the bells in the tower melted and plummeted in deformed clumps to the ground. The tower fell. The tomb stone slabs cracked in the heat, collapsing into the tombs they were covering. The magnificent copper roof was aglow with heat when it was torn off by the wind and carried across the waters to Södermalm, another of Stockholm’s islands, igniting a massive fire there. By the time the fire was under control, the church was a smouldering ruin.

The church rose again, and among its parishioners we can find some of Sweden’s most famous 18th century poets, diplomats and members of the truly well-to-do.  Time passed. Stockholm’s central station was constructed a stone’s throw from Klara Kyrka. Excellent for all those industries requiring access to transports, and soon enough Klara was the centre of Swedish printing industry. And newspapers. And lots of little cafés and restaurants and bars in which journalists and poets and writers hung out. Most of these were men, and where there are a lot of men, soon enough the ladies of the night appear. Middle class families moved away, reluctant to share space with all those noisy printing presses, the equally loud writers and journalists who spent the nights drinking and carousing—and all those working women.

By the late 1930s, a lot of the area surrounding Klara Kyrka was borderline slum. It was time, time to throw out the old and bring in the new, and block after block was chewed up by diggers and wrecking balls.

Today, little remains of the old buildings that once stood close to Klara Kyrka. In some cases, the end result is unsettling, like when a grave monument to honour “the best of wives” sits back to back with something big and modern.

But in the small park surrounding Klara Kyrka a sensation of peace still remains—maybe it is as simple as the old trees, the various graves and the church itself reminding us that life isn’t eternal, but some things withstand the tooth of time. Like the magnificent inscription I found in a corner:

So who was this Christoph Theodor Antivari, imperial resident in Stockholm for 35 years? Well, we don’t know much beyond the fact that he served the Hapsburg Emperors Charles VI and Francis I, as well as the Francis I’s somewhat more famous wife, Maria Theresia, mother, among many, many others, to Marie Antoinette.

One of Christoph’s duties was to ascertain there was a priest in residence at the legation. A Catholic priest, I might add, in a country where the Swedish Lutheran Church frowned upon all other forms of worship. When recruiting one such priest, Christoph assured the candidate that “Stockholm is none too bad.” 😊
He also meddled in internal politics, donated massively to Klara Kyrka and ended up here for all eternity. Maybe he felt that it was “none too bad” to lay at rest while all around him life continues in a busy, busy flow of people!