Introduction to the community
The establishment of the Evangelical Way of Mary is a work of God. He found an instrument that was willing to listen and obey, so that he could speak, act and create. Her name was Paulina Mariadotter (Gunvor Paulina Norrman 1903-1985). She belonged to the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Sweden.
As a young woman, Paulina Mariadotter dedicated herself to Christian social work. She became aware of the need of the single woman and she received a message from God: “Jesus Christ both can and wants to deliver the single woman’s energy of life to the Service of His Love’s Life.”
Paulina Mariadotter lived this message in her own life and other women came and experienced that this was something from God. God could create “a new congregation, religious life in the midst of the world”. Our mission is to live and pray for unity. We also have a mission to make the Lord’s Mother Mary known, loved and honoured also in the Evangelical-Lutheran part of the Church of Christ.
The spiritual content for the Evangelical Way of Mary was received between 1938 and 1949. As Birgitta Laghé (Doctor of Theology) sums up: “The vision of the designation ‘the Visitation’ (1949) constitutes the foundation for both the Lutheran and the Roman Catholic branches of the Daughters of Mary.” In 1958, the first sisters gave their perpetual vows and received the blessing by a priest. In connection with this the sisters began using a habit.
There is also a branch in the Roman Catholic Church, the Daughters of Mary OSB at Vadstena, Sweden. The movement into the Roman Catholic Church was taken in deep unity in 1988.
Contact details
Address: Mariadöttrarna, Mariagården vid Vallby Kyrka, SE – 745 98 Enköping, Sweden
Community information
Bishop: Karin Johannesson
Chaplain: Torbjörn Bolander
Publications
Birgitta Laghé, Den Evangeliska Mariavägen till enhet: En studie i Paulina Mariadotters spiritualitet, Artos & norma bokförlag, 2004.
Summary in English, translated title: The Evangelical Way of Mary to Unity: a study of the spirituality of Paulina Mariadotter.
Yvonne MariaWerner (editor), Nuns and Sisters in the Nordic countries after the Reformation: a female counter-culture in modern society, The authors and the Swedish Institute of Mission Research, printed by X-O Graf, Uppsala, 2004.
Mariadöttrarna, Paulina Mariadotter HERRENS Redskap, Verbum förlag, 1990. This biography of the sisters is translated into German, Danish and Finnish.
Leadership
The Lord’s Mother Mary is the Mother of the Congregation. The possibility for the Daughters of Mary to live without a visible Mother is that each sister has devoted herself to the vocation so that gives the engagement for her to subject herself by her own free will to what the Lord had spoken on the Evangelical Way of Mary.
Membership
We are 22 sisters, ranging in age from 28 to 95 years old. We are of four nationalities: Swedish, Danish, Finnish and German.
6 Oct 2019 – Sr Janina, aged 73, professed 42 years
