Advent Candles

The advent candles are four candles that are lit every Sunday in advent were the first is lit on the first Sunday, the second the next Sunday and so on until all four candles are lit on Christmas evening. It has been a custom to lit a candle since the end of the 1900 – century. The precursor to the advent candles was the advent tree, which often were placed in hospitals and in churches. Already during the 1870 the advent tree occurred at the Ersta deaconess house in Stockholm. The idea had come from Kaiserswerths deaconess house in Germany. There they had lit 7 candles – one for every day on the week – one for every Sunday in advent and then they read the promised word from The Old Testament. The oldest information of lighting a candle every Sunday in advent is from a sermon that was held by Nathan Söderblom in the Swedish church in Paris in year 1896. There he had said that in a home (presumable his own) every Sunday of advent they used to lit a candle that they had placed in a Juniper Bush.
The tradition of the advent tree spread it self from the middle to the north and at last to the south parts of Sweden. Not until 1920 – 30 became the custom with four candles more common and special candleholders starts to sell