200 Kronor - Carl XVI Gustaf Saint Birgitta

Issued to mark the 700th anniversary of Birgitta Birgersdotter's birth, this coin arrives at a date that required some scholarly compromise — her birth year is traditionally given as 1303, though historical records are imprecise enough that the anniversary itself is partly conventional. Birgitta founded the Bridgettine Order in Vadstena in the 1340s and was canonized in 1391, but her political significance in Sweden has always outrun her religious one; she remains the only Swede ever declared a patron saint of Europe, a designation conferred by Pope John Paul II in 1999, just four years before this coin was struck.