Gråkoltarna

Gråkoltarna (approximately: "Greyfrocks", "The Grey Shirt's" or "Grey Robes") was a religious mystic-apocalyptic sect within Radical Pietism, active in in Sweden in the 1730s.

The sect was formed in the residence of Anna Maria van den Aveelen in Södermalm in Stockholm. She was the widow of the artist Johannes van den Aveelen from the Netherlands. She gathered women to meetings of prayer and bible studies. The bible meetings became popular, and attracted more and more people, among them the radical pietist Sven Rosén (Pietist), who formed the bible study group in to a sect.

The congregation of the Gråkoltarna consisted of both sexes, however females had a dominating and leading place. Among the members were members of the noble family Grundelstierna and von Strokirch, the Bryntzenius family as well as among female domestics and wives of soldiers.

Gråkoltarna believed in the interpretations of dreams and visions, and their message was that the apocalypse was approaching. Because of this, it was essential to prepare oneself for eternity and make amends for one's sins. The members therefore renounced their possessions and practiced a policy of collective ownership of property. They also renounced work, and everything which could distract them from a spiritual life and what they felt that they had been ordered to do by divinity. Many also chose to live in celibacy. They regarded the luxury consumption and wealth, by that growing in Stockholm because of the flourishing merchant business in Sweden during the Age of liberty, as sinful.

The sect also attracted positive attention and followers outside of Stockholm.

The sect started to attract attention from the Stockholm authorities in 1731. Many members by that time started to practice charitable work among the poor as a way of their spiritual life. As they had renounced all worldly possessions, they had also adopted the most simply dress possible, and was therefore referred to as Gråkoltarna, "The Grey Shirts". Many of them had adopted this dress after having sold their old clothes and handed out the money among the poor.

The sect violated the law of Konventikelplakatet, which banned all religious gatherings outside of the church in order to protect the power of the church. In July 1731, the sect was reported to the authorities by the vicar of the Maria congregation in Stockholm. At the following arrest, nine women and a man by the name Lexelius was arrested: the rest had fled to avoid arrest.

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