Terp, Holger: Danish Peace History - Det danske Fredsakademi

objection? Twenty-one years later Peter Brock publish his “Freedom from violence”,
wherein Fredrik Bajer is (rightly) turned down as pacifist, he was an internationalist.
In “Freedom from violence” Peter Brock describes Scandinavian Christian pacifism. As
in his former books we see that the main focus of Brock is the religious pacifism, as
the appendix has the title “Christian Pacifism in Denmark and Sweden to 1914”. In
the appendix appears the following to me unknown pacifists: Mogens A. Sømmer and
Christian Hope, but the domestic and international Danish peace work has a long
tradition, just as other countries.
I am not a historian or peace researcher. I am an educated librarian with poor eyes,
using the tools of my trade and here mostly historian thesis and printed primary
sources. Secondary volumes are used mainly to check how the history had been used.
Thanks for the kind help and expertise from
the employees at the Record Office, the Royal
Library of Copenhagen and my local library at
Friheden. Also many thanks to American
professor in English Julianna Free for
improving my poor English.
The first student rebellion
During the Nordic war between Denmark and
Sweden 1657-59, while Copenhagen was the
capital of the dual monarchy Denmark and
Norway, Jesper Baltzarsen Könecken or
Jasper Könekenii (1629-1715) as he later was
called in the Netherlands, in training for the
ministry preached to the war-torn state.
Among the audience in the pews were
students from his own university, citizens and
the defenders of Copenhagen. At that time
people were allowed to speak in the course of
the service who was not actually the minister
of the church congregation.
Taken by surprise, the patriots heard from
the learned young man, that according to the
New Testament, wars for Christians were unlawful. Also, it was the view of Könecken,
that Christians should not be rulers 6 . And if war were unlawful for the Christian
Danish monarch, so it also was unlawful for the Christian Swedish king Charles
Gustav (1622-1660). Accordingly Könecken wrote two letters to the Swedish monarch,
demanding him to stop the war 7 .
6 The concept patriot is borrowed from the first volume of Dansk identitetshistorie. 1991. See also
Ludwig Helweg: Den danske kirkes Historie efter Reformationen, Vol. 1, 1851 pp. 390-391.