Christina Odenberg (born 26 March 1940) is the retired

bishop A bishop is an ordained member of the clergy who is entrusted with a position of Episcopal polity, authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance and administration of di ...

of the

Diocese of Lund The Diocese of Lund () is a diocese within the Church of Sweden which corresponds to the provinces of Blekinge and Skåne. There are 217 parishes within the diocese, the most significant number in any of the dioceses of the Church of Sweden. Th ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

between 1997 and 2007.

Biography

Christina Odenberg is the daughter of Ingemar Odenberg and Kerstin, born Moberg. Odenberg was for some time politically active in the Moderate party and her brother

Mikael Odenberg Mikael Ingemarsson Odenberg (born 14 December 1953) is a Swedish politician of the Moderate Party. He was a Member of Parliament from 1991 to 2006 and Minister for Defence in the Swedish government from 2006 to 2007. From 1 March 2008 to 28 Fe ...

was Sweden's Minister for Defence 2006–2007. She was ordained in Stockholm on 17 December 1967. She served as a priest in Östergötland county first as an assistant vicar in Östra Ryd then as vicar in Österåker-Östra Ryd. 1990 she became a contact priest in Roslags kontrakt. When the then bishop of the

K. G. Hammar Karl Gustav Hilding Hammar, commonly referred to as K. G. Hammar, (born 18 February 1943) is a Swedish clergyman. He was Archbishop of Uppsala, primate of the Church of Sweden, from 1997 to 2006. During his tenure as archbishop he was a highly di ...

was made archbishop of

Uppsala Uppsala ( ; ; archaically spelled ''Upsala'') is the capital of Uppsala County and the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, fourth-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö. It had 177,074 inhabitants in 2019. Loc ...

Odenberg was appointed as his successor on 5 June 1997, and was ordained bishop on 5 October the same year. This made her the first woman to become a bishop in the history of the

Church of Sweden The Church of Sweden () is an Evangelical Lutheran national church in Sweden. A former state church, headquartered in Uppsala, with around 5.5 million members at year end 2023, it is the largest Christian denomination in Sweden, the largest List ...

. On 27 December 2001 she caused a lot of attention and from some circles outrage when she in a sermon called "the gift of Love" blessed the partnership of Anna Karin Hammar and Ninna Edgardh Beckman. She was even by some groups accused of breaking her priestly pledges by blessing something they claimed as a sin. Odenberg is the spiritual protector of the Swedish section of the

Order of Saint Lazarus The Order of Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem, also known as the Leper Brothers of Jerusalem or simply as Lazarists, was a Catholic military order founded by Crusaders during the 1130s at a leper hospital in Jerusalem, Kingdom of Jerusalem, whose car ...

In January 2007 she received

H. M. The King's Medal H. M. ( His Majesty) The King's Medal (), earlier known as the Court Medal (), is a Swedish honour that may be bestowed upon Swedish and foreign citizens. The medal was created in 1814 and is awarded in different sizes in gold and silver with chai ...

of the 12th size in the Seraphim ribbon. Christina Odenberg retired on 31 March 2007 and was succeeded by

Antje Jackelén Antje Jackelén (; born 4 June 1955) is archbishop emerita and primate emerita ('' prima inter pares'') of the Church of Sweden, the national church. On 15 October 2013, she was elected the 70th Archbishop of Uppsala and formally received throu ...

References

This article is based on the Swedish version on Wikipedia. {{DEFAULTSORT:Odenberg, Christina Lutheran bishops of Lund Women Lutheran bishops 20th-century Lutheran bishops 21st-century Lutheran bishops 1940 births Living people