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DANISH TRADITIONS

How Danish churches plan to continue celebrating scrapped holiday

A large number of churches across Denmark have plans to celebrate Great Prayer day this year, even though the occasion is no longer a public holiday.

Published: 12 April 2024 16:53 CEST
How Danish churches plan to continue celebrating scrapped holiday
Confirmation at a Danish church on Great Prayer Day 2023. Photo: Mikkel Berg Pedersen/Ritzau Scanpix

The coalition government controversially scrapped Great Prayer Day in 2023, meaning that this year is the first time since the 1600s that the population won’t get the day off work on the fourth Sunday after Easter.

The official website of the Church of Denmark, Folkekirken.dk, has posted over 100 Great Prayer Day events on its church calendar in locations across the country on Friday April 26th.

Most of the events will feature short, alternative church services, some with meditation, music or candle lighting, according to Folkekirken.dk.

One such church to put on an event for the now-cancelled public holiday is Nørremarkskirken in Jutland town Vejle.

The Vejle church will mark the occasion with an evening service on the Thursday before Great Prayer Day along with serving the traditional hveder, cardamom-infused wheat buns with a generous spreading of butter and perhaps jam. 

“Those of us who are choosing to mark the day are reaching back in some way to its original conception. A day with a focus on penance and prayer. That got drowned in the day being used for confirmations,” church priest at Nørremarkskirken Tove Bjørn Jensen told newswire Ritzau.

Denmark originally introduced Great Prayer Day – officially an “extraordinary normal prayer day” in the late 17th century during the time of King Christian V, who decreed it.

The decree condensed religious holidays that had existed since before the Reformation – for example during the spring and at harvest, as well as several extra ones around Christmas time – into a single holiday.

It was a more serious affair in its early years. Inns and cellars were required to stop serving their beverages when church bells rang the preceding evening at 6pm. Everyone had to attend church – sober – the following day. Fasting until the end of religious services was also demanded.

As reference by Jensen, more recent years saw confirmation or konfirmation – a Lutheran ritual in which young teenagers say they believe in God, and also a coming-of-age rite in popular custom – commonly take place on Great Prayer Day.

READ ALSO: Why did Denmark have Great Prayer Day holiday and why was it abolished?

Confirmation does not have to take place on Great Prayer Day though – many are held on the Saturday after, and this is likely to become even more common from 2024 onwards.

Nevertheless, some 75 churches in Denmark have decided to have confirmations on April 26th, according to Folkekirken.dk.

Jensen said it is still important to observe the day, even though its status as a holiday is no more.

“Prayer is a central part of Christianity so we think it’s good reason for a church service with special focus on prayer,” she said.

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For members

DANISH TRADITIONS

Why do the Danes take such long summer holidays?

Summer in Denmark means workplaces emptying for weeks on end and a flood of 'out of office' replies from colleagues and clients taking lengthy vacations. But have you ever wondered exactly how summer holidays of at least three weeks became so entrenched in Danish society?

Published: 2 July 2024 16:19 CEST
Why do the Danes take such long summer holidays?

The word sommerferielukket, meaning ‘closed for summer’ is something you’ll see on signs in hair salons, cafes, shops, libraries, and other businesses throughout July and sometimes beyond.

Denmark’s long summer holidays are written into law: most employers are legally obliged to allow their workers to take three consecutive weeks off in the summer. Naturally many of them jump at the chance, particularly if they have small children, whose børnehave (kindergarten) will also be sommerferielukket.

Some large Danish companies meanwhile halt operations over summer, and small business owners often decide to do the same. Authorities like municipal offices can also shut down non-essential services.

This all adds up to a strange feeling of emptiness in the bigger cities in July in particular, as those who haven’t gone abroad will often head to their rural summer houses. And the summer closures can be frustrating to those who aren’t used to the system, especially since they coincide with the tourist season.

All the same, it’s good to be aware of the custom so you don’t get caught out when that restaurant or shop you really wanted to visit is closed for the rest of the month.

READ ALSO: Five Danish phrases you only hear in summer

History

The right to take a long summer holiday that we take for granted today, did not come to Denmark until 1938. 

During the first half of the 20th century, as the agricultural sector diminished, an increase in young people who were finishing school, moved from the countryside to larger cities to find work. The new workers formed trade unions, which, among other things, fought for reduced working hours and later for the right to a holiday.

In 1919, the trade unions succeeded in getting working hours reduced to 50.5 hours a week with Sundays off. Then in 1938 they got the first holiday law passed (ferieloven). The holiday law gave all Danes the right to two weeks’ holiday a year. 

The law progressed into the creation of the organisation, ‘People’s Holiday’ (Folkeferie), which was formed to support and provide holiday opportunities for workers, so they had somewhere to go on holiday. During the 1960s and 1970s Danes then started building their own summer houses, as the welfare state grew.

The trade unions continued to negotiate during the following decades and in 1979, there was an agreement to five weeks of holiday. A major revision of the holiday law soon followed, so that all Danes were not only given the right, but also the duty, to take five weeks’ holiday. 

A new holiday act was passed in 2018 and implemented in September 2020, around a new concept of concurrent holidays. This allows employees to earn 2.08 holiday days each month, which they have access to use immediately, as opposed to the old scheme where workers earned holiday days for the following year.

READ ALSO: What are the rules for taking annual leave in Denmark?

The Danish Holiday Act (Ferieloven)

The Danish Holiday Act covers most salaried employees for five standard weeks (normally 25 days) of paid vacation. Holiday earned during a given month can be used from the very next month, in a rule referred to as concurrent holiday (samtidighedsferie). You can check how much holiday you have accrued and are therefore entitled to take at a given time by logging in to the relevant section of the borger.dk portal.

The vacation year is broken down so that there is a “main holiday period” (hovedferie in Danish) which starts on May 1st and ends on September 30th. During this time, you are entitled to take three weeks’ consecutive vacation out of your five weeks.

A lot of people take three weeks in a row while others break it up – which is why you often hear Danish people who work full time wishing each other a “good summer holiday” as if it’s the end of the school term.

Outside of the main holiday period, the remaining 10 days of vacation, termed øvrig ferie in Danish, can be taken whenever you like. You can take up to five days together but may also use the days individually.

If your employer wants to decide when you should take any of your vacation days, they have to let you know at least three months in advance for the main holiday, or one month in advance for remaining holiday, except for exceptional circumstances.

If you have not earned paid vacation, you still have the right to take unpaid holiday. However, people whose right to work in Denmark is dependent on a sponsored visa or other form of work permit should check whether their visa allows them to take unpaid leave, since this may not be the case.

READ ALSO: Feriepenge: Denmark’s vacation pay rules explained

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