125 YEARS LATER.... Part -2-

ST. PETERBURG SA TRAINING COLLEG 1919 Adjutants Ljungholm and Cadets















In his 1968 novel , The First Circle, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn says, '"You can't buy a ticket to yesterday!" The fact is though that I was offered a ticket to yesterday, and it brought me to Solzhenitsyn's homeland, Russia. There, I with a handful of other officers, was charged to re-open the SA work. In my luggage I carried a diary that recorded the work of my grandparents who had 'opened fire' in Moscow 70 years earlier; it was my ticket to yesterday. The diary included the original handbill that was used in 1921 and the address of their very first SA meeting in Moscow, including his sermon notes. Much helpful stuff there telling me of tradition and methods used those 70 years ago in attracting Muscovites to this new ‘Army’ that we too could employ. In fact, we simply Xeroxed the handbill, updated the date of out meeting, and negotiated to use the very same hall in the Polytechnic Museum across the square from the KGB headquarters.. The one major change was that we draped the SA colours across the massive bust of Lenin, a common 'figure' resting in every public building.

On one of General Eva Burrow's several visits to Leningrad and Moscow during that early post- Perestroika era she reminded me though that: THE SALVATION ARMY HAS ONLY ONE TRADITION, WE HAVE NO TRADITIONS ! Cling to what worked, but dare to explore and believe...

A SENSELESS TRADITION
Anders Sunesen (c. 1167 – 1228) was archbishop of Lund, Sweden. To educate the priests and to forward his ideas, especially about the integration between church and state, he wrote a didactic poem in Latin Hexaëmon, consisting of 8,040 verses, and no, it won’t be a part of this article. If the 8,000 verses were in Swedish, then that would be an entirely different matter! Sunesen lived his last years on Ivö Island, a place that’s been a part of family tradition for more than two centuries..

Like you perhaps, I’m interested in my family roots, including SA history. I set out to explore his formative year’s history and to learn what had brought a village boy to one day ‘OPEN FIRE’ in Russia in the company of Karl Larsson (General John Larsson’s grandfather) and a band of others from Scandinavia.

Our family of six drove through Southern Sweden where the Ljungholms were said to hail from. We were enroute home to New York following a ski holiday in Sweden. A few days prior to flying across the Atlantic we made a sidetrip to the small village of Gualöv, where Otto Ljungholm was born.

A lone figure moved carefully along the newly gritted road, feet shuffling from the light cast from one street lamp to the next; easier to traverse than the icy footpath in the darkness that envelopes Sweden early during the long winter months. I pulled up as close as possible to the figure bent low against the wind and rolled down my side window; a blast of below zero weather broke the warmth of the car’s interior as the old woman faced me… “Kann jag hjalpa pa nagott satt?” (May I be of help?) Her strong regional accent reminded me immediately of my grandfather’s voice silenced since the 1960s. I introduced myself as a Ljungholm and mentioned that my grandfather Otto Ljungholm’s diary suggested that many who shared that surname had at one time lived in Gualöv. She immediately replied, “And they still do- my name is Greta Blomgren, but I was born a Ljungholm, and pointing past our car she added, ‘and that old brick building across the street there is where your grandfather went to school!” I translated Mrs. Blomgren’s comments to the family and the excitement in finding this link to tradition was palpable… Before I could say another word came the invitation; “you must come to our home for coffee and “bullar” (home baked cinnamon buns). Twenty minutes later we were enjoying strong coffee and buns straight out of the oven, pouring over family photos and other Ljungholm mementos, treasured items speaking of tradition.

The photos included many that spoke of a Godly family; Christenings, confirmations, baptisms, weddings and more in the small parish church, and most interesting to me, a few early family members in SA uniforms, taken less than 10 years following the army’s ‘opening fire’ in Sweden. Photos family funerals all had a similar backdrop; the ancient church on Ivö Island., the island where the archbishop of Lund had worshipped and preached 750 years earlier. Tradition carried from generation to generation…

We completed our many notes, snapped some photos and departed for the village church, live candles behind tightly closed frosted windows reflected in the snow. At the church entrance we stomped our boots free from snow on the grid on the steps directly in front of the massive door. The grid was a Swedish church design tradition constructed to make it impossible for the devil, a goat with cloven hoofs to enter the church. The cloven hoof is traditionally associated with the Devil and the Swedes' image is shared with British folklore and tradition. In works from Shakespeare and Sir Thomas Browne the association is very close and the devil takes pains to hide or disguise the hoof.

We turned page after page of brittle yellowing parchment attempting to decipher the old brittle document’ reference to the Ljungholm family. The constancy of the finely penned notation: "buried on Ivö Island" told me we had to cross the lake and make a visit.

There were no more ferry crossings that day, and with the children worn out, the air bitterly cold, we decided that the next morning, as soon as there was sufficient light, we’d line up with others to drive aboard the auto ferry. I suppose we shouldn’t have been surprised that we were the only car that departed the pier that next morning.

We saw the centuries’ old whitewashed church long before the ferry tied up on Ivö Island. It sat high on the snowy hill, and the single lane dirt road twisted its way to the graveyard adjoining the thick walled structure. We wandered among the grave-stones dating back to medieval times; “Here’s a Ljungholm, my daughter cried out”, and, “here’s another”, this time from one of my sons… 12, 15, 20 and more… Family tradition indeed etched on granite markers.

Next it was a visit inside the cavernous church serving in union with the Archbishop´s cellar located at Hovgården. Inside we found well-preserved murals and ceiling paintings. The architecture was typical of 13th century churches, the traditional Romanesque style. Their decoration consisted of faded wall and ceiling paintings. Swedes are tenaciously traditional, and in this ancient church, to a fault. A modern rendition of the style is found in The SA hall in Vansbro, “A Salvationist Enters Heaven” by Bengt Engman, where a Salvationist presents his tunic to St. Peter on entering the gates of heaven.

Strangely though, in some churches there are no paintings at all. It’s not that the tradition wasn’t maintained it’s just that, as the paintings began to fade and be attacked by mildew, they were simply eradicated; limewashed and painted over. Irreplaceable works of folk art obliterated, works that would now be classified as priceless.

The ritual on entering the church in ancient days was to turn and face the wall on one’s left, bow or curtsy before taking a place in the family pew. The custom was carried from generation to generation, in fact long past the years when the paintings could no longer be seen. No one knew quite why the ritual was observed; it was simply a tradition.

When demolition and restoration work was conducted in the 1960s careful removal of layer after layer of lime revealed an extraordinary find. Faintly at first, what emerged was a massive medieval painting of Christ. Tradition, that ancient ritual had been observed and honored for centuries but no one knew the reason: tradition without thought, reason or reflection.

Is there a lesson here for modern day Salvationists? Call me a "yes man", but I agree with the General, the former TC of Scotland; "Cling to what worked, but dare to explore and believe..."












Dr. Sven Ljungholm
Hamilton Corps