Norway Abolishes State Church

This is pretty great news.

All parties of the parliament have accepted the changes to the constitution that will separate church and state in Norway, making Norway a secular state, dismissing the evangelic-lutheran church as the Church of Norway.

The King will no longer appoint bishops, this will be done by the congregation. After the change all religions will be treated on equal basis, although the values of the country will still remain based on Christian heritage. 80% of Norwegians are members of the church, but only a fraction goes to church regularly.

The abolishment will bring many changes. For one, the funding of the church will be completely re-organized as priests' salaries have been paid by the government until now. One solution would be to charge membership fees to pay for salaries, upkeep and programs in the future. There has also been a seat in the government for a Church Minister, but this will now be merged with another seat.

Although Nordic church nations are quite similar to each other, the reformation by Gustav I of Sweden left Finland and Sweden under a top-down roganization with bishops in the lead, while Norway and Denmark have had a more layman-inspired approach and organization.

But yeah, I hope this creates a domino effect around here.