Store Bededag is one of eleven official holidays in Denmark. Now it could face a fall. The government has calculated that the holiday will bring 3.2 billion Danish kroner – or just over 4.6 billion Norwegian kroner – extra to the treasury if it is turned into a working day. Been a holiday for over 300 years Great Prayer Day was introduced as a public holiday as early as 1686. It was to be used for penance and fasting. The day falls on the fourth Friday after Easter, and three weeks before Pentecost. – From olden times it was customary for the church bells to ring already the evening before Great Prayer Day. It was a signal for people to stop work and go home. Then all shops and offices closed. – Not least the catering establishments had to close. It was so that people would come rested and sober to church on the big day of prayer itself, says news’s Nordic correspondent, Joakim Reigstad. He adds that the Danes’ tradition of eating “warm wheat” in connection with Great Prayer Day originates from the same. – Because the baker also had to close the shop. So then they made wheat buns that people could heat themselves in the oven the next day. – But even if some keep the tradition alive, for most people the day is probably primarily associated with a completely normal day off today, says Reigstad. In Norway, too, we had Great Prayer Day when we were under Danish rule, but in 1916 it was moved to the Friday before All Saints’ Day. In 1950 it was moved again, then to the Sunday before All Saints’ Day, and placed on an existing holiday. Since 1686, Great Prayer Day, which falls on the fourth Friday after Easter, has been a public holiday. Photo: Reuters Staff / Reuters Great confirmation weekend The Danish government is now proposing to turn Friday Prayer into a normal working day. It has set Danish minds on fire. – The reason for removing the day off is that you can free up more money which the new government will use to increase defense budgets. But it is also a day off that many Danes greatly appreciate. – It gives people an extra long weekend between Easter and Pentecost, because the day is always added to a Friday. In addition, the day is popular for holding confirmations, says Reigstad. Defense Minister Jakob Ellemann-Jensen (V) (former) Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen (S) and Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen (M) have stirred up large parts of Danish society with the proposal to remove the public holiday. Photo: DR The bishops protest The country’s 11 bishops have submitted a rare protest to the minister of the church. They claim the proposal is an intervention in the folk church’s tradition. “The bishops find the holiday essential for both the Christian preaching and the community in our society. The bishops therefore find it regrettable that the government wants to abolish a public holiday,” says the letter to the minister of the church. The Danish bishops are also against the removal of the public holiday. The College of Bishops has done something they rarely do, publicly protested together. Photo: Bo Amstrup / Ritzau Scanpix / NTB The church’s top leaders write that they hope the state will respect that the national church’s holidays are associated with days off and point to the section on the national church in the Danish constitution. “Furthermore, the connection between abolishing a public holiday and increasing defense spending is somewhat puzzling,” the bishops write. The trade union movement cursed The government has also stirred up a united trade union movement. Everyone from doctors to industrial workers is asking the government to either drop the proposal or hold a referendum on removing the day off. The powerful leader of the Trade Union Confederation, Lizette Risgaard, is mighty cursed. Both over the proposal and for the government’s interference in the parties’ responsibilities in working life. Photo: DR The trade union movement believes the government is messing up the roles and meddling in things that traditionally belong to the parties of working life. The government proposes that as compensation for the prayer day moving from a public holiday to a working day, everyone will receive a salary supplement of 0.45 per cent of their annual salary, equivalent to one working day. Hourly workers must be paid for the extra working hours the new working day entails. The public holiday allowance paid to those who have to work will be removed without compensation. Public offices, kindergartens, schools, SFO and other services must open their doors if the day off is removed. This will entail increased costs for the municipalities, which have not been included in the council. – This is an obvious interference in the Danish working life model and the agreements that have been negotiated over many, many years. It is not the correct way to go, said Lizette Risgaard to Danmarks Radio. She is the head of the main organization of the trade union movement (FH). Today, the business committee, where 25 of the most powerful trade union leaders, from the medical association to Dansk Metal, had a meeting. – Now it is a big day of prayer, but it could just as easily have been Maundy Thursday or a Sunday. Who knows what they will prey on next time, Risgaard continued to DR. Both the trade union movement and others are reacting to the short consultation deadline the government has set. Normally, when a proposal is sent out, those who have to give input have four weeks. Now the deadline is seven days. This spring, negotiations will start on a new main agreement in the private sector of the Danish business community. Danish economic commentators believe that the risk of a strike is extremely high due to the large price increases that the Danes are also feeling. But that the government is pouring more fuel on the fire with its course of action. The trade union movement is now planning a large demonstration against the proposal. They have also launched a signature campaign. Within an hour, 100,000 Danes had signed. Defense Minister Jakob Ellemann-Jensen (V) (former) Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen (S) and Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen (M) met the press after the debate in the Folketing. Photo: Ritzau Scanpix Mads Claus Rasmussen / NTB Uncertain calculation The government believes that the removal of Great Prayer Day will give at least 3.2 billion Danish kroner extra to the state treasury, according to DR. But the calculation is uncertain, and this has been criticized. – Many economists have pointed out that the Danish Ministry of Finance has calculated the effect without being sure whether the change in the number of days off will have lasting effects. – The ministry’s people have also admitted that the figure of 3.2 billion is associated with uncertainty, but that it can go both ways, says correspondent Joakim Reigstad. Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen herself defended the proposal in the Folketing today. – I do not think it is problematic that we should work an extra day. The proposal will be put forward and adopted, said the Prime Minister. She points out that Denmark does not meet the NATO requirement that 2 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product must be spent on defence. If this is to be achieved, money must be released. The nine opposition parties in the Norwegian Parliament have found each other in a rare alliance. The leader of the Conservatives, Søren Pape Poulsen, and of the Socialist People’s Party, Pia Olsen Dyhr, are equally disappointed with the government’s course of action. Photo: DR Nine parties together in protest The parties that make up the new government, the Social Democrats, Liberals and Moderates, have a majority in the Folketing. Thus, they do not need support from other parties to get the controversial proposal through. The government has also given the other parties in the Folketing an ultimatum; if they want to participate in negotiations about the defence, then they must vote for the abolition of the Great Day of Prayer. This has caused the nine parties in opposition to come together and reject the Prime Minister’s ultimatum. They have also taken note of the opposition in the people and the church and ask in a letter to the government that Great Prayer Day is not sacrificed on the altar of the defence. – Mette Frederiksen’s government is clear that they have decided on the issue of the public holiday. Frederiksen has pointed out several times that she understands that it is not a popular decision, but that it is necessary. – But today she allows parties that do not support the abolition of Great Prayer Day to still be able to participate in discussing the defense settlement, says Joakim Reigstad. Frederiksen asks the nine parties to find a joint, unified proposal for alternative financing. – These are new notes. I am happy that, if this means, that we can discuss the next ten years in Danish defence, without going in to abolish the day of prayer, said leader of De Konservative, Søren Pape Poulsen, to DR. The leader of the Socialist People’s Party, Pia Olsen Dyhr, believes that the government displays complete arrogance of power.
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Has been a Danish holiday for 300 years
