Living History: Part I in a Series...
The Separation of Church and State

The gun battery and cathedral at Upsala

"They haven't given us much trouble since then."

Gustavus Adolphus (1594-1632), warrior king of Sweden during the Thirty Years War, recognized that the clergy must be kept subordinate to secular authority to prevent them from establishing a religious tyrany. This is the Styr Bishops gun battery -- the name means 'Control the Bishops', from the Swedish word 'styra' or 'steer' -- at the royal castle in Uppsala. The emplacement may be overgrown now, with some of its guns dismounted, but it's clear that the good king understood the proper balance of power between Church and State. Would that today's politicians, mullahs, and priests were as wise...