diff --git a/src/helma/objectmodel/dom/XmlUtil.java b/src/helma/objectmodel/dom/XmlUtil.java
index b28e8810..05301d70 100644
--- a/src/helma/objectmodel/dom/XmlUtil.java
+++ b/src/helma/objectmodel/dom/XmlUtil.java
@@ -14,6 +14,7 @@ import org.w3c.dom.Element;
 import org.w3c.dom.Node;
 import org.w3c.dom.NodeList;
 import org.xml.sax.SAXException;
+import org.xml.sax.InputSource;
 
 import helma.objectmodel.INode;
 import helma.objectmodel.TransientNode;
@@ -55,6 +56,19 @@ public class XmlUtil	{
 		}
 	}
 
+	public static Document parse (InputSource in) throws RuntimeException	{
+		DocumentBuilder d = getDocumentBuilder();
+		try	{
+			Document doc = d.parse (in);
+			doc.normalize();
+			return doc;
+		}	catch (SAXException e)	{
+			throw new RuntimeException ("Bad xml-code: "+e.toString());
+		}	catch (IOException f)	{
+			throw new RuntimeException ("Could not read Xml: "+f.toString());
+		}
+	}
+
 	/**
 	  * get first "real" element (ie not the document-rootelement, but the next one
 	  */