Финляндия Евангелия-Лютерандық Шіркеуінің Тарихы

One of the national churches of Finland

The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland (; Evangelisk lutherska kyrkan i Finland) is a national church of Finland. It is part of the Lutheran branch of Christianity. The church has a legal position as a national church in the country, along with the Orthodox Church of Finland. The church is a member of the World Council of Churches and the Conference of European Churches. It is also a member of the Porvoo Communion and is actively involved in ecumenical relations. With 3.6 million members as of 2022, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland is one of the largest Lutheran churches in the world. It is Finland's largest religious body; at the end of 2022, 65.2% of Finns were members of the church. Christianity was introduced to Finland slowly: the first signs of the Christian faith being found in burial sites dated to the 9th century. Based on etymological evidence, it seems that its very first influences came to present day Finland from the Eastern Christian tradition. Archaeological evidence shows that by the middle 12th century, Christianity was dominant in the region around present day Turku. One legend recounts a crusade dated around 1054, but no contemporary or archaeological evidence backs the story. Another legend is that the martyr bishop St. Henry founded the Finnish Church, but that is also most likely fictional. The introduction of Christianity was mostly a peaceful, slow process contemporaneous with the gradual integration with Sweden, although a series of Swedish led crusades were fought during this era. The first bishop, whose name was Thomas, lived in the first half of the 13th century. Thomas was granted resignation by Pope Innocent IV on 21 February 1245. According to the pope, Thomas had admitted committing several felonies, such as torturing a man to death, and forging a papal letter. The ecclesiastical hierarchy was completely established during the Second Swedish Crusade. During the Middle Ages, the Diocese of Turku was under the primacy of the Archbishop of Uppsala, mirroring the country's Swedish political rule. The diocese had a school, making it capable of educating its own priests, but several Finns also studied abroad in the universities of Germany and Paris. Before the Reformation, the most important monastic orders active in the bishopric were those of the Franciscans, the Dominicans, and the Bridgettines. The liturgy of the diocese followed the Dominican model.

The Swedish Reformation began during the reign of King Gustav Vasa (1527) and reached its conclusion in 1560. Sweden, like other Nordic countries, adopted the Lutheran form of Protestantism. Most monastic estates in Finland, along with Kuusisto Castle, which was the medieval residence of the Bishops of Turku, were confiscated by the Swedish crown. The first Lutheran Bishop of Turku was Martinus Johannis Skytte, former Vicar General of the Dominican Province of Dacia. He retained most of the old Catholic forms within the Diocese, which was part of the now independent Church of Sweden. By the end of the 16th century, the Swedish Reformation was finally complete, and the following century was known as the period of Lutheran orthodoxy. Membership in the church was obligatory, as was attendance at Divine Service. In newly conquered Finnish Karelia, the Lutheran Church suppressed the Eastern Orthodoxy of the local population, which drove a large number to Russia. At this time, the Church started to lay the foundations for comprehensive education, in which every person was required to know the basic tenets of the Christian faith. Parish vergers were given the duty of instructing children in reading and in the Catechism. The education of priests was improved, the Royal Academy of Turku was founded, and the educational system was codified in the Church Act of 1686. In the early 18th century, Finland was occupied by Russia for a decade during the Great Northern War. A large portion of Finland was annexed by Russia, where the Lutheran church remained active despite being under Russian rule. The two branches of Finnish Lutheranism that were thereby divided were reunited in the early 19th century. In both Russia and Sweden, Lutheranism was greatly affected by the theology of Enlightenment, which had the effect of secularizing the Church. This, and the lavish lifestyle of parish vicars, caused public resentment which became visible in popular local revival movements. The Church accepted separation from the state, because the head of state was the Orthodox Russian Emperor, it regarded complete integration with the state as problematic. In 1889, an act was passed allowing other Christian denominations to act freely in the country, and members of the Lutheran Church were given the right to leave the church to join other Christian communities. Since 1923, it has been possible to leave the state church without having to join another religious congregation. During the early 19th century, several revivalist movements were formed, four of which were particularly prominent. These movements were:
Rukoilevaisuus (those who kneel to pray, or pray frequently), founded by peasant girl Liisa Erkintytär, and later, by the priest Abraham Achrenius. The movement has been active mostly in Western Finland. The Awakening (also called Pietists), founded by the peasant Paavo Ruotsalainen. Evankelisuus (connected to Neo Lutheranism), founded by the priest Fredrik Gabriel Hedberg. Laestadianism, founded by Lars Levi Laestadius. The revivalists met strong opposition from the bishops and the educated part of the population but drew large followings in the countryside. In modern Finnish historiography, the revivalist movements have been considered to be a part of the social upheaval caused by the modernization of society. In the late 19th century, the Church started to face opposition from liberalism, the position of the Church being particularly questioned by the emerging labor movement. The Church was also challenged by the Baptist faith and the Methodist faith, which became the first two private religious communities in Finland. The Church reacted by allowing its own revivalist movements more freedom and by starting new youth activities such as Sunday schools and Christian youth associations, but the main current of Finnish nationalism was affected by Lutheranism. For example, the most important philosopher of Finnish nationalism, Johan Vilhelm Snellman, considered Lutheranism an important factor of the Finnish identity, although he was critical of the Church as an organization.

In the early 20th century, the old Landtag, based on the four estates of the realm, was changed into a unicameral parliament (Eduskunta) selected by equal vote. In 1908, an amendment of the Church Act freed church members from the legal duty to participate in Holy Communion at least once a year. After this, church attendance dropped and has since become an indicator of personal religious opinion. (See also kyrkogångsplikt, the previous requirement to attend church services.) Finnish independence, in 1917, was immediately followed by the Finnish Civil War, with the church associating itself with the White (nationalist) side, while the Red Guards embraced anticlericalism to the point of murdering priests. In the Constitution of 1919, the new republic was deemed to be non confessional and freedom of worship was enshrined as a right. In 1923, this right was further implemented through the Freedom of Religion Act. Although the act gave the right for every adult Finn to leave the Church (and consequently be free from the duty of paying Church tax), the vast majority of the people remained members, regardless of their political leanings.<! In the 1960s, the church faced strong opposition from the radical left, who considered it an old fashioned fortress of reaction and criticized the rudiments of the church's position within the state. The 1966 blasphemy trial of novelist Hannu Salama became a cause célèbre for the antiestablishmentarian position. Salama was sentenced to three months in prison but placed on probation, before subsequently being pardoned by President Urho Kekkonen. Another widely criticized aspect of the Finnish Church State relationship was the prohibition of public dances and movie theaters on Saturdays preceding certain Sundays, a ban that remained in effect until 1968. The Church responded to its unpopular situation by a program of modernization. During the 1970s, work on new Finnish Bible translations and a new hymnal was begun. The hymnal, which incorporated a large number of revivalist and youth hymns, was adopted in 1986. In addition, a new Bible translation (based on the theory of dynamical equivalence) was completed and approved for use in 1992. Finally, the Synod opened the priesthood to women, a change that was first discussed, but not passed, by the Synod in 1963, and which continues to cause controversy.

Religion in Finland Year Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland Finnish Orthodox Church Other No religious affiliation 1950 95.7% 1.7% 0.4% 2.7% 1980 90.3% 1.1% 0.7% 7.8% 1990 87.9% 1.1% 0.9% 10.2% 2000 85.1% 1.1% 1.1% 12.7% 2005 83.1% 1.1% 1.1% 14.7% 2010 78.2% 1.1% 1.4% 19.2% 2011 77.2% 1.1% 1.5% 20.1% 2012 76.4% 1.1% 1.4% 21.0% 2013 75.3% 1.1% 1.4% 22.1% 2014 73.8% 1.1% 1.6% 23.5% 2015 73.0% 1.1% 1.6% 24.3% 2016 72.0% 1.1% 1.6% 25.3% 2017 70.9% 1.1% 1.6% 26.3% 2018 69.8% 1.1% 1.7% 27.4% 2019 68.7% 1.1% 1.7% 28.5% 2020 67.8% 1.1% 1.7% 29.4% 2021 66.6% 1.1% 1.7% 30.6% 2022 65.2% 1.1% 1.8% 32.0%

The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland has a legal position as a national church in the country alongside the Finnish Orthodox Church. The Constitution of Finland provides for a Church Act (kirkkolaki) to organize and govern the Evangelical Lutheran Church; the Act can only be amended with the initiative of the Synod of the Church – maintaining the autonomy since Tsarist times. Finnish society has experienced a general secularization, and membership in the church has decreased in recent decades. In 2015, Eroakirkosta. fi, a website which offers an electronic service for resigning from Finland's state churches, reported that half a million church members had resigned from the church since the website was opened in 2003. Nevertheless, the church retains the allegiance of a large majority of the population, a special role in state ceremonies, and the right to collect the church tax from its members in conjunction with governmental income taxation. In addition to the membership tax, businesses also participate to some extent by a tax that is distributed to the church. Avoidance of the church tax (between 1 and 2 percent depending on location) has been a popular reason cited for defections from the Church. In 2010, the number of defections hit a record of 83,097, caused in part by the church's position that homosexuality is a sin. That position was made clear on a Finnish television discussion program concerning gay rights that was broadcast on 12 October 2010, in which church clergy and laymen were divided both for and against proposed legal amendments to increase LGBT rights. Stefan Wallin, Finland's minister responsible for church affairs, accused Päivi Räsänen, the leader of the Christian Democrats, of deliberately taking a public position against homosexuality and gay rights in order to drive away from the church those people who might hold more liberal views on gay acceptance. On 9 February 2011, the ELCF Bishops' Conference issued a "Pastoral instruction concerning free prayer with and for those who have registered their civil partnership", which can be conducted either privately or publicly in a church, with or without guests, but which is not to be confused with "the blessing of a partnership comparable to marriage". As of 2022, just 65.2% of Finns belonged to the Evangelical Lutheran Church, a decline of 13.0 percentage points from 2010. The highest share of the population belonging to the church is in South Ostrobothnia, where 81.9% belong to the church. Meanwhile, the lowest share is in Uusimaa, where the proportion is 53.8%. On a municipal level, there are only three municipalities where over 90% belong to the church; Perho, Kinnula and Reisjärvi. Helsinki (47.6%) and Vantaa (49.1%) are municipalities where a minority of the population belong to the church.

The structure of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland is mainly based on geographical division. Every member belongs to the parish of their domicile, with parish boundaries following municipal boundaries. Large cities, on the other hand, are usually divided into several parishes, with the geographical location of the members' homes determining parish membership. The membership of a parish varies from a few hundred in small municipalities to around 60,000 members in the parish of Malmi, Helsinki. According to the Church Act, the parish is responsible for all the practical work performed by the church. The parish is headed by the vicar and the parish council. Both are elected by the members, using equal, closed voting. The term of the parish council is four years while the vicar is elected for life or until he reaches sixty eight years of age. A parish is a legal person of public nature, capable of taxing its members. The amount of tax collected is decided by the parish council and falls between 1 and 2.25 percent of personal income. In practice, the tax is collected by the state, for a fee. Financially, the parishes are responsible for themselves. However, poor parishes can be assisted by the central administration. On the other hand, all parishes are responsible for contributing 10 percent of their income to the central administration of the church and the dioceses. The day to day affairs of the parish administration are taken care of by the vicar and the parish board, elected by the parish council. In cities, the parishes of the city have a common parish council but separate parish boards.

A master's degree in Theology is compulsory before ordination. The Church also has its own vocational postgraduate educational system. A newly ordained pastor is eligible for the position of Parish Pastor (, församlingspastor), formerly Assistant Priest (, adjunkt). In order to be eligible for the position of Chaplain (, kaplan) or Vicar (, kyrkoherde), the Pastoral Degree of the Church (, pastoralexamen) is required. Before being able to apply for the post of Vicar, a degree in leadership skills (, Examen i ledning av församlingsarbete) is also compulsory. The Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Prayer Brotherhood is an optional clergy confraternity. In order to be eligible for the position of a Vicar General (, domprost) or Diocesan Dean (, stiftsdekan) the Higher Pastoral Degree of the Church (, högre pastoralexamen) is required. In addition to religious worship, local Lutheran communities arrange many non religious activities as well. In Finland, as in other Nordic countries, most people go to church only occasionally, such as for Christmas and weddings.