Nathan Söderblom

Lars Olof Jonathan Söderblom (; 15 January 1866 – 12 July 1931) was a Swedish bishop. He was the Church of Sweden Archbishop of Uppsala from 1914 to 1931, and recipient of the 1930 Nobel Peace Prize. He is commemorated in the Calendar of Saints of the Lutheran Church on 12 July.

Life and career

Söderblom was born in the village of Trönö in Söderhamn Municipality, Gävleborg County. His father was a parish priest. He enrolled at Uppsala University in 1883. Although not initially convinced what he wanted to study, he eventually decided to follow in his father's footsteps. On returning from a journey to the United States, he was ordained as a priest in 1893. During the years 1892 and 1893, he was first vice president and then president of the Uppsala Student Union.

He believed that church unity had the specific purpose of presenting the gospel to the world and that the messages of Jesus were relevant to social life. His leadership of the Christian "Life and Work" movement in the 1920s has led him to be recognised as one of the principal founders of the ecumenical movement. He had begun the movement toward intercommunion between the Church of Sweden and the Church of England and was a close associate of the English ecumenist George Bell (1883–1958), Dean of Canterbury, Bishop of Chichester. He was instrumental in chairing the World Conference of Life and Work in Stockholm, in 1925. In 1930 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Selected works Den enskilde och kyrkan : föredrag (1909) Helighet och kultur (1913) Gudstrons uppkomst (1914) 9 Works by Nathan Söderblom at The Documentation of Chinese Christianity program, Hong Kong Baptist University Library