Education
Petrhus held manual jobs from the age of ten, being apprenticed to a shoe factory in 1899. After graduating from seminary, Pethrus completed his compulsory military service at Axvalla Hed, Västergötland, in the autumn of 1906.
Petrhus held manual jobs from the age of ten, being apprenticed to a shoe factory in 1899. After graduating from seminary, Pethrus completed his compulsory military service at Axvalla Hed, Västergötland, in the autumn of 1906.
That year, he was baptized in the Baptist Church in Vänersborg. After emigrating to Norway in 1900, he became co-pastor of the Arendal Baptist Church in 1902, along with Adolf Mildes. After a series of meetings in Lillestrand.
He claimed that the experience happened to him spontaneously and that he did not understand at the time what was happening to him.
Pethrus became pastor of a small Baptist Church in Bengtsfors, Dalsland, in 1903, but did not seek formal theological training until 1904, when he enrolled at the Betel Seminary in Stockholm. He was later to say that his training was detrimental to his faith.
Exposure to the writings of liberal philosopher Viktor Rydberg temporarily undermined his faith in the divinity of Jesus, but claimed to have regained it after meeting Jesus personally in a vision. That year, he became pastor of the Lidköping Baptist Church.
Pethrus became pastor of the Seventh Baptist Church in Stockholm in 1910 and of the Philadelphia Church in 1911.
During the same phase of his life Pethrus wrote the words and music for his gospel song "Löftena kunna ej svika" ("The promises cannot fail"). The Philadelphia Church started a Bible school in 1915 and a weekly magazine, The Gospel Herald, in 1916. In the same year, the church sent its first missionaries, Samuel and Lina Nyström, to Brazil, helping the Assembleias de Deus.
Pethrus sponsored the founding of a high school in 1942 and Dagen, a daily newspaper, in 1945.
A cr fund was established in 1952 and a radio station, IBRA Radio in Tangier, Morocco, in 1955. Pethrus resigned from the pastorate on 7 September 1958.
He continued preaching as an iterant preacher, and established the Lewi Pethrus Trust for Philanthropic Endeavour in 1959. In 1964, he spearheaded the founding of Sweden"s Christian Democratic Party.
A year before his own death, he was made a Knight Commander of the Vasa Order.
His autobiography, Ett sagolikt liv ("a storied life") was published in 1976.
