Sven Rosén (Pietist)

Sven Rosén (1708 in Västergötland, Sweden – 1750 in Emmaus, Pennsylvania) was a Radical-Pietistic writer and leader.

Through his acquaintance with Christians influenced by Johann Konrad Dippel, such as Carl Michael von Strokirch and others, and by diligent studies of mystical Christian works, Rosén was brought into the Radical Pietism, where he, after some soul struggling, joined the so-called Gråkoltarna ("gray robes"), who held mystical-apocalyptic and schismatic gatherings (forbidden by law in Sweden at that time), in the house of the widow of the Dutch artist Jan van den Aveelen.

When some of the participants were arrested and imprisoned, friends of Rosén sent him to Riga (then part of the Swedish Empire), where he, as in Copenhagen at his journey home 1732, met with the Moravian Brethren movement, which for a while had a calming influence on him.

Back in Stockholm in 1735, he again joined the radicals among the Pietists, and became the leader for the first free congregation in Sweden, the "Philadelphian Society". Through this position he also became the accepted leader for all the Radical Pietists in the country.

Soon the authorities started to prosecute the small community-living congregation. Rosén's writing was one of the causes, in which he with great conviction pleaded for freedom of religion. During the trial he wrote several writings to his defence, which later were illegally printed and spread over the country, read as Christian literature by the revived followers.

As a result of the trial, the congregation was crushed, and Sven Rosén was sentenced to lifelong exile. At January 28, 1741, he was put on a prisoner wagon, to be brought all the way to the southern coast of Sweden, where a ship would take him over to Denmark. At every stop during the long and cold journey, Pietists came to say farewell to their beloved leader, and he preached to them and to large gatherings of people, from the prisoner wagon, to which he was chained. Some of his dearest friends from the passed towns joined and walked beside him, so that he always had care and comfort from believers.

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