Pastor Sunniva Gylver was known for her piercing and dreadlocks, but also for her faith and compassion. On Sunday, the 58-year-old pastor in The Norwegian Church was ordained as the bishop of Oslo, at a special service in the Oslo Cathedral with the monarch and prime minister present.
Gylver, who has served for decades as a parish pastor in Oslo, has long sought to give Norway’s Lutheran church a clear voice on human values issues of the day. She also welcomes religious diversity in Norway, which transformed its former state church several years ago into more of a “people’s church” keen on staying abreast with the times.
She was the first female pastor invited to speak in a mosque in Norway, often wears simply a T-shirt emblazoned with the word PREST (pastor) on it, has written several books and led TV programs concentrating on various outlooks on life. As a pastor she’s met people in all phases of life, from the joy of conducting weddings to sorrow at funerals. After her own husband of 30 years fell ill with cancer and died in 2021, she experienced her deep sorrow herself, and has since tried to help others to live with that.
Now she’ll lead The Norwegian Church in Oslo, Asker and Bærum, saying at the outset that a bishop “must be a team player, and I look forward to working with other leaders and church employees, volunteers and elected officials of the diocese.” She was chosen as bishop for her “unique ability to spread the Christian faith in an engaging and understandable manner.”
She also called on church-goers to speak out and up about human values. “We live in uneasy times, in a fantastic and terrible world. That’s what people have pretty much always done,” she said in her first sermon as bishop.
“In a steadily more polarized public exchange of opinions, it’s easy to be silent or a troll, and lose confidence,” she said. “But as a chuch we’re called to something else, to believe, to have hope and to fight” to defend human values.
At a time when a bishop in Washington dared to speak out against some of the controversial views of the new US president, Gylver’s views seem especially relevant. The special service on Sunday was attended by King Harald V and Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre (whose wife is a pastor). Gylver succeeds Kari Veiteberg, who chose to return to her work as a street pastor for Kirkens Bymisjon.
NewsinEnglish.no/Nina Berglund