The Sisters of the Holy Spirit in Alsike Kloster (Helgeandssystrarna)

The monastic family of the Holy Spirit Sisters at Alsike Kloster is one of the fruits of the re-awakening of monastic life which started in the first half of the 20th century in the Reformation churches in Europe. This movement touched the Swedish Church in the 1940s-1950s.

In 1948, Sister Marianne Nordström was invited by the Order of the Holy Paraclete to test her vocation, having returned to Sweden in 1954, she and Sister Ella Persson started a common life in the Diocese of Stockholm, moving to Uppsala in 1856 on the invitation of the then Dean, Olof Herrlin (later Bishop of Visby) to take up work among the university students. In 1964 the community moved to Alsike, twenty kilometres south of Uppsala, continuing their life of prayer and hospitality in the old schoolhouse close to the parish church. During this period novices came and went. In 1983, Sister Karin Johansson was received as a postulant and made her final profession in 1995. By then, Archbishop Gunnar Weman had succeeded Bishop Herrlin as Visitor, and the community, having become involved in refugee work since 1978, was declared the Sanctuary of the diocese by him. The years of crisis in the Swedish Church brought them into contact with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Kenya, where they have found a response for their way of life and a new hope of growth. There are now plans to erect a kind of monastic village for work with refugee children, students and mission.