Erik Gustav Hjerpe Records

Erik Gustav Hjerpe, second president of the Evangelical Covenant Church, was born on March 2, 1853 in the town of Hillringberg, Glava Parish, Värmland. His parents were Carl Hjerpe, an iron forger, and Marta Lisa Hane, who was his father's second wife. He was their fourth of seven children (two others had come from the first marriage). When he was twelve years old he graduated from the parish grammar school, then spent the next fourteen years working in various iron works in Värmland, Småland, and Västmanland. In 1874 he was converted and began to lead devotional meetings among his fellow believers, eventually being elected of the Mission church in Västanfors, Västmanland.

In 1879 he emigrated to Lake City, Minnesota and quickly expanded his mission work. While travelling through the state with an itinerant preacher, he met the Rev. J. G. Sjöquist, who introduced him to the Mission Friends of the Ansgar Synod. In 1880, with Sjöquist's recommendations, he obtained a ministerial license from the Ansgar Synod, served briefly in its Moline, Illinois church, and enrolled that fall at Ansgar College in Knoxville, Illinois. After a year of study he became pastor of the Mission church in Galesburg, Illinois, where he met and married one of his congregation's members, Josephine Peterson. They eventually had seven children: Carol, Esther, Ruth, Fridolph (Fred), Agnes, Florence, and Lillian.

Hjerpe remained in Galesburg for seven years, during which time he held a variety of offices in mission organizations. He became secretary and subsequently chairman of the Ansgar College aid association. He also served as secretary of the Ansgar Synod. Generally supportive of denominational organization, he joined those members of Ansgar who helped organize the Evangelical Covenant Church in 1885, serving as a secretary at the organizational meeting. In April, 1886 he helped to organize the Illinois Missionary Society, then became its secretary. Later that year he was elected secretary of the Covenant itself, an office he held until 1891.

Hjerpe continued this pattern of pastoral and organizational service for the next two decades. In 1888 he accepted a call to the Mission church in New Britain, Connecticut. While serving there as pastor, he helped to organize the Eastern Missionary Association and became its president in 1892. He also helped to organize the Eastern Sunday School Association and served as chairman of the Eastern ministerial conference. In 1901 he moved to the First Mission church in Jamestown, New York and subsequently served the Middle East Missionary Association, becoming president in 1904. In 1906 he moved on to Bethany Covenant Church in Chicago and almost immediately after arriving was reelected secretary of the Covenant. Soon afterward he also became president of the Covenant's Illinois Conference (formerly the Illinois Missionary Society, presently the Central Conference).

Hjerpe began his full-time career as a Covenant administrator in 1909, relinquishing his pastorship of Bethany to commit himself more to the duties of denominational secretary. He also became North Park College's financial secretary. This move was significant because it represented a greater denominational commitment to centralized administration (previously the only full-time denominational administrator had been the president). Nevertheless, he served as full-time secretary for only a year before being elected to replace C. A. Björk as president of the Covenant in 1910.

Under Hjerpe's administration, which lasted from 1910 to 1927, the Covenant consolidated itself and achieved significant institutional growth. Though it established relatively few new congregations, it formed closer ties with a number of regional mission associations, most notably the Eastern Missionary Association in 1921, and thereby established foundations for future growth. Equally important to the Covenant's future growth was its initial commitment to youth ministries during this period, represented by its establishment of a Sunday School department, an English-language periodical, The Covenant Companion, and a program to increase the use of English within its congregations. Other important institutional developments included the publication of an official newspaper, Förbundets Veckotidning (Covenant Weekly), the establishment of a pension fund for its pastors, and the passage of a new constitution in 1923. Meanwhile its previously established institutions, such as North Park College and Swedish Covenant Hospital in Chicago (founded in 1903), continued to prosper.

During this period Hjerpe suffered two personal tragedies. His son Fridolph, who had been in frail health throughout his life, died in 1917 of a heart ailment. In 1919 his youngest daughter Lillian was diagnosed with diabetes, of which she died the following year.

Despite these misfortunes, Hjerpe was a vigorous president, following the pattern he had established as a pastor and organizer. In addition to his regular administrative duties, he promoted the Covenant's foreign mission programs, visiting Alaska in 1913 and China in 1915 and 1916. He also edited and contributed to a number of Covenant publications, including Aurora, a yearly calendar, and Korsets Seger (Victory of the Cross), a collection of essays on the China mission field. During World War I he organized a Covenant military chaplaincy program and visited a number of camps throughout the United States. Perhaps most importantly of all, he helped to arrange the final settlement of the Number Nine Above case in 1920, ending seventeen years of litigation.

Hjerpe retired from office in 1927 and spent his remaining years at North Park, serving briefly as interim pastor of North Park Covenant Church. After a brief illness, he died on July 16, 1931 at the age of seventy-eight. His funeral was held at North Park Covenant Church, and he was buried in Montrose Cemetery in Chicago.

Written by Chuck Strom.