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Bishop reacts to the church action in Skien during the Easter service

Bishop Stein Reinertsen in Agder and Telemark thinks the action of red-clad activists in Skien church on the first day of Easter was inappropriate.

– In general, you do not go in and disturb another person’s service. The feedback I have received is also that more people were scared. Some thought it was terrorists who came. This is not how it should be in a church, he says Our country.

Reinertsen also thinks it was inappropriate for a priest to lead the action in liturgical clothes. He states that he is in dialogue with the priest, even though she is not employed in the diocese of Agder and Telemark.

– Use of liturgical clothing a trifle

Theologian and priest Ellen Hageman tells the newspaper that it was not the activists’ intention that anyone should be scared because of the action, and that this is feedback they want to take seriously.

She says that the purpose of the action was to show what humans as a species do to other species. Hageman thinks what she was wearing is not a big problem.

– Among other things, we are concerned about loss of nature and that there are no national accounts for how much nature disappears each year. That I break the Norwegian Church’s guidelines for the use of liturgical clothing, I think in this context is a trifle, she says.

Actions on the first day of Easter

It was at 12 o’clock on the first day of Easter that seven activists from the group Extinction Rebellion went to action with dead animals on a cross during the Easter service in Skien church. The protesters were stopped by churchgoers, who physically pulled at least one of the activists out of the church.

The activists have stated that the animals had been found dead in the wild, and that the church was chosen because it is a state-funded majority church with the goal of being an important institution that influences values, morals and ethics in society.

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