Swedish Wars of Religion

The Swedish Wars of Religion was an internal conflict between the Catholic Swedish court and the numerous heretics within the nation.

Background
Sweden had grown more and more culturally and religiously diverse with the nation's conquests, especially when expanding into Russia such as with the Novgorod War, War of the Lakes, and the War of the Rivers. While the Swedish court usually let these minorities be, during the Age of Reformation, local preachers began speaking out against the government for not being tolerant of their beliefs.

The tipping point took place after the Pomeranian War, as Stettin, Greifswald, and Stralsund had a Protestant majority. These were obviously much more hostile towards the Catholic church, and the conflicts between the different heresies eventually broke out into a full war.

The War
On 3 February 1537, Fredrik Dufwa, a renowned patriarch in Nya Stockholm, ordered his faithful to rebel against the government for increased autonomy and religious freedom. The Kremlin was then occupied, and the rabble moved into Tver even though that nation was already officially Orthodox. They later moved into Muscovy, and then occupied Olonets.

Charles I of Sweden immediately ordered missionaries to be sent to Karelia in order to begin combating the heresies. Swedish troops fought Dufwa's rabble in Olonets and successfully wiped out his forces, then moved to liberate Nya Stockholm. The Kremlin was finally freed on 28 March 1538.

On 11 April 1538, Charles I passed the Blasphemy Act, which made blasphemy a common law and thus punishable. On 2 February 1540, Charles I announced the nation would embrace the counter-reformation. Following this, numerous separatist revolts rose up in Swedish Novgorod and Muscovy, but they were all crushed. Soon, more and more of the Russian territories converted to Catholic, though at the same time many Swedish provinces converted to Protestant.

Gustavstad was the last province to be converted to Catholic. The process was very expensive and forced the Swedish court to take loan after loan just to fund the missionaries. However, once the city did convert on 12 August 1550, the wars finally ended.