While Storkyrkan has rarely been used as a burial church for royalty (instead, Riddarholmen Church fulfilled that role until 1950), a number of high-profile funerals have taken place in Storkyrkan during the 20th century. After the bodies of the three members of the failed Andrée's Arctic balloon expedition (Salomon August Andrée, Knut Frænkel and Nils Strindberg) were retrieved and returned to Stockholm in 1930, their funeral was held in Storkyrkan. More recently, the funerals of writer Astrid Lindgren (died 2002) and of the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy Sara Danius (died 2019) were also held in Storkyrkan. When MS "Estonia" sank in 1994 with the loss of many Swedish lives, a memorial service, attended by the royal family and the Prime Minister of Sweden, was held in Storkyrkan. Similarly, the church hosted an extra service after the assassination of foreign minister Anna Lindh in 2003.