Skip to main content

Christianity in Finland - a brief history

The Finns are a people of Finno-Uguric descent, linguistically related to the Estonians and Hungarians, but also peoples such as the Evenki of Siberia. In Finnish Finland is known as Suomi. 

There had been a Christian presence in Finland from the 1000s. 

In 1155, Eric IX of Sweden launched a campaign to Christianise Finland, accompanied by bishop Henry of Uppsala, who was martyred in 1156. About a century later, in 1249, Finland was annexed by Sweden. The first indigenous bishop was Abo of Turku in 1298. While most of Finland became part of Sweden, to the east, Karelia remained under Russian control, and the form of Christianity planted there was Eastern Orthodoxy. 

At the time of the Reformation, a follower of Luther called Mikael Agricola came to Swedish-controlled Finland and completed translation of the Bible in 1551, as well as translating other texts into Finnish. 1593 is the date when Lutheran Christianity was officially adopted in Finland. 

An early figure in Finnish Pietism was Katarina Asplund (1690-1758).

The official evl.fi website of the Finnish Lutheran church states, "There is a strong tradition of pietism in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland". It lists four oldest active revival movements as: The Awakened Movement, the Prayer Movement, the Laestadian Movement and the Lutheran Evangelical Movement.
 
Baptist congregations were established in Finland from 1855, and Methodism from 1859.

In 1809, Finland became part of the Russian Empire. In 1869, the Finnish Lutheran Church was disestablished.  

(Finland was independent from 1917. Finland fought and won wars with for its independence in 1918 and 1939-40.)  

In Finland, Pentecostal Christianity first began with a revival in the Vasa region in 1907, which spread by 1908, and was followed by a revival in Helsinki in 1911-12, with the first visit to the country by T. B. Barratt. 

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The history of the Christian Church in twenty places

α. Jerusalem (30 or 33 AD) The place where Christ, the Son-of-God-become-man, died on the Cross, was raised from the dead on the third day, and from where he ascended back to heaven. This is also where the Holy Spirit was poured out on the first disciples. Sometime after AD 44 (Acts 12), Peter, John and other Apostles dispersed across the world to bear testimony to the risen Christ. 1. Ephesus (approx. 100 AD) The place where the Apostles, Paul and John, handed over to the next generation of Christian leaders, which included the “Apostolic Fathers”. One such “Apostolic Father”, Ignatius of Antioch, passed through Ephesus on his way to martyrdom at Rome, and addressed a letter to the church at Ephesus. 2. Athens (second century) The centre of Greek thought, which Justin Martyr and other Second Century Apologists addressed in their presentations of the Christian faith, proclaiming Christ as the Logos (the Word or principle underlying the universe). 3. Lyon (from 177) The church in ...
Post a Comment
Read more

George of Lydda ("Saint George")

Saint George, the patron saint of England, was an historical figure, although many things ascribed to him are not historical.  George of Lydda was born into a noble family in an area called Cappadocia (now Turkey), which at the time was populated by Greek speaking citizens of the Roman Empire. George was born around 280. His mother appears to have come from Diospolis/Lydda (now known as Lod, near Tel Aviv), the place where he was later to die. When his father died, George and his mother moved back to the town of her birth.  George was a soldier in the Roman army at the time of Emperor Diocletian. When the protracted persecution of Christians unleashed by Diocletian began to be directed at Christians in the army, George was martryred by decapitation at Lydda in the year 303.  George's death was said to have inspired Empress Alexandra of Rome (d. 314) to become Christian.  The later stories of dragon-slaying are not historical and do not appear in early hagiographies (...
Post a Comment
Read more

History of Christianity in Latvia - great "saints" and heroes of the faith in Latvia

The Baltic region, including what is now Latvia , was one of the last outposts of European paganism, and was only evangelised and converted from the 1100s.  Bishop Meinhard (1134-1196) was one of the first to successfully plant the gospel in Latvian soil. An Augustinian canon (similar to a monk), he served as the first bishop of the see of Üxküll (now  Ikšķile ,  Latvia ). However, the murder of his successor led to a more violent imposition of Christianity.  This was in the context of the Northern Crusades  (Livonian Crusade) whereby peoples/tribes inhabiting this region, including the Latgalians, Selonians, Semigallians and Curonians, came to embrace the Christian faith. Andreas Knoepken  (1490-1539), a disciple of Luther, was the one who "brought" the Protestant Reformation to Latvia in its Lutheran form. 1521 is considered the date of the Protestant Reformation in Latvia; by the mid 1500s the majority of people had become Protestant. The Bible was ...
Post a Comment
Read more