Finnish Orthodox Church

Written for Virtual Finland by Leo, Archbishop of Karelia and All Finland



The ‘Iljan praasniekka’ is an annual festival held at Ilomantsi Church, dedicated to the Prophet Elijah. The festival is celebrated on the day of the Prophet Elijah in July; this is one of the oldest pilgrimage sites of the Orthodox Church of Finland.


Photo: Petter Martiskainen


History

The Orthodox faith can be considered the earliest form of Christianity to arrive in Finland. It spread to southern Finland and to the people of Karelia around Lake Ladoga through trade and other contacts with the East over 1,000 years ago. The founding of monasteries on the islands of Lake Ladoga contributed significantly to the spreading and establishment of the Orthodox faith in eastern Finland. The monasteries were important missionary centres.


Chief among these monasteries was Valamo, traditionally held to have been founded by a Greek-born monk named Serge and his younger assistant Herman. Another important monastery was Konevitsa, founded by Arseni, another Greek monk, in the late 14th century. It was through the missionary zeal of the monasteries of Lake Ladoga that the Orthodox Church gained a foothold in eastern Finland and Karelia. Churches were built in villages, and several tiny wilderness monasteries were founded literally in the middle of nowhere. In the 16th century, the Orthodox Church in Karelia reached the Arctic Ocean with the founding of the Petsamo monastery. The location of the monasteries of the Orthodox Church of Finland before and after the Second World War.

Illustration: Maarit Inbar


The western parts of Karelia were taken over by Sweden in the wars between Sweden and Russia in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. The puritan Lutheran Church of Sweden brought pressure to bear on the Orthodox population living near the eastern border, and many Orthodox Karelians moved to central Russia around this time. Russia regained full control of Lake Ladoga in the early 18th century, and in 1809 the whole of Finland became part of the Russian Empire as an autonomous Grand Duchy. This marked the beginning of a period of vigorous growth for the monasteries of Lake Ladoga. The largest Orthodox Cathedral in Western Europe, the Uspenski Cathedral in Helsinki, by architect A.M. Gornostajev, was consecrated on October 13, 1868.



Photo: Comma/Matti Tirri



Administratively, the Orthodox Church in Finland at first came under the Archbishop of Novgorod, but when Finland was annexed by Russia, the land was joined to the Diocese of St Petersburg. In the late 18th and mid-19th centuries, the Church of Russia began to invest in education for Orthodox populations in border regions and remote areas. The Holy Synod decreed that services in Finnish parishes should be conducted in Finnish and that priests assigned to Finnish parishes had to know Finnish. The founding of the Diocese of Viipuri in 1892 was a major advance for the Orthodox Church of Finland.

Procession at the ‘Petrun praasniekka’ festival in Ilomantsi.

Photo: Petter Martiskainen

With the Russian Revolution of 1917, Finland became independent, and administrative ties with the Church of Russia were severed. The Orthodox Church of Finland had to be reorganized. The government appointed a committee to deliberate the position of the Church, and the committee submitted a proposal which the Senate enacted as the Decree on the Orthodox Church of Finland in 1918. This Decree raised the Orthodox Church and put it on a par with the Lutheran Church as the second national church. Tikhon, Patriarch of Moscow, confirmed the autonomy of the Orthodox Church of Finland in 1921. Two years later, in 1923, a tomos decree transferred the Orthodox Church of Finland to the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and gave the Church a high degree of independence in internal matters. On gaining autonomous status, the Church determined that its services and official business were to be conducted in Finnish. The seat of the Archbishop was moved from Viipuri to Sortavala.

The Second World War turned the Orthodox Church of Finland into a church of evacuees. After the Winter War, Finland was obliged to cede Sortavala and all of Ladoga Karelia to the Soviet Union. The Church lost 90 per cent of its property, and 70 per cent of its members had to be evacuated from their homes. The Orthodox population became dispersed throughout Finland. The monasteries of Karelia were also evacuated and re-founded at new locations. Vespers on Great Friday in the Church of the Prophet Elijah in Helsinki. The congregation venerates an icon of the burial of Christ in the middle of the church.

Photo: Credo Imagebank/Johannes Karhusaari

The Finnish government alleviated the plight of the imperilled Orthodox Church by enacting a Reconstruction Act under which new parishes were founded to replace those lost in Karelia. In the 1950s and 1960s, numerous new churches, rectories and cemeteries for new Orthodox parishes were built at the government’s expense. The Church found stability again.

Under Archbishop Paavali and his successor Archbishop Johannes, the Church forged international links in the Orthodox world. The Church has established itself as a part of Finnish society and its spiritual culture. In 2001, Metropolitan Leo was elected Archbishop of Karelia and All Finland, continuing along the paths laid out by his predecessors.

Church administration and finances

The Orthodox Archdiocese of Finland is an autonomous Church under the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. The Church has a high degree of independence in internal matters, and it is free to organize its affairs within the bounds of the law of the land, provided that such arrangements do not conflict with the accepted Orthodox traditions. The link with the Ecumenical Patriarchate is manifested, for instance, in the fact that it is the Patriarch who confirms the election of an Archbishop.

The supreme body of the Church is the Synod, which includes both clergymen and lay members. Bishops are members of the Synod by virtue of their office. The convocation of bishops have to approve any decisions taken by the Synod regarding the spiritual life or canons of the Church.

The Orthodox Church of Finland has members throughout the country, with a total membership of about 60,000 (2002). In recent decades, the membership has been steadily growing.

Administratively, the Church is divided into three dioceses: Karelia, Helsinki and Oulu. The Bishop of Karelia is the Archbishop; the other bishops are styled Metropolitan. The Bishop of Karelia is assisted by a suffragan bishop known as the Bishop of Joensuu. The seat of the Archbishop is in Kuopio, where the central Church administration is also located.

The dioceses are further divided into 25 parishes, which cover widely varying geographical areas. All parishes have a chief church and a number of other churches and oratories or tsasounas where services are held. There are about 150 churches and tsasounas in all. There is one Orthodox monastery and one Orthodox convent in Finland.
An Orthodox baptism. Traditionally, only a single name is given to an Orthodox child. The baptism itself is performed by immersing the child three times in the name of the Holy Trinity. Then the baptismal robe is put on.

Photo: P. Martiskainen

Services are mainly held in Finnish, although some parishes by tradition use Church Slavonic, Greek or Swedish. Internationalization has led to services also being held in English, Estonian and Romanian in the largest cities. The Parish of Lapland regularly holds services in Skolt Sámi as well.
This icon in the main church of Valamo monastery is considered the most valuable spiritual treasure of the Orthodox Church of Finland. Called the Miracle-Working Icon of the Mother of God of Konevitsa, tradition holds that it was brought from Mount Athos in Greece by the founder of Konevitsa monastery, the monk Arseni, in the 14th century.

Photo: P. Martiskainen

The finances of the Church are largely based on church taxation, which is levied by the government and donated to the Church each month. The parishes pay the salaries of their clergymen and cantors themselves. The expenses of the central administration and the dioceses are covered by the government.

Clergy training and religious instruction

From 1918 to 1988, Orthodox clergy studied at a seminary which was originally in Sortavala but which after the war was first temporarily housed in Helsinki and then moved to Kuopio. The seminary was disbanded in 1988, and studies for the priesthood are now provided by the Department of Orthodox Theology at the University of Joensuu. In 2002, the University of Joensuu founded a Faculty of Theology, including the above-mentioned Department as well as a Department of Western Theology. Joensuu also has an Orthodox seminary that provides spiritual instruction and liturgical training for those seeking a post in the Orthodox Church. The seminary has a dormitory, a small reference library and a church of its own. The University of Joensuu also trains Orthodox religion teachers and church musicians.

Pupils in schools are provided with religious instruction according to their denomination. If there are at least three pupils belonging to the Orthodox Church in a municipality, the local authority is obliged to organize religious instruction for them. In other cases, the Church endeavours to provide instruction.

The monastery of New Valamo in Heinävesi runs an Orthodox folk college open to all. It gives courses in icon painting and church textile manufacture, for instance, and also introductions to the Orthodox faith and way of life.

Public relations of the Orthodox Church

Orthodox services and other religious programmes have slots in the religious programme quota of the Finnish Broadcasting Company. Services are often broadcast on radio, and quite often on TV, too. There are several Orthodox periodicals being published in Finland, the Ortodoksiviesti of the Parish of Helsinki having the widest circulation. Many parishes publish their own newsletters. The oldest Finnish Orthodox periodical is Aamunkoitto (Dawn), published since 1896 by the Brotherhood of SS. Serge and Herman, the Church’s internal missionary society. Ortodoksia, the theological journal of the Association of Orthodox Priests, is also published regularly. There are also periodicals aimed at Orthodox youth and students. The Church has its own publishing council to publish service books and other Orthodox literature.

Recently, the Church has invested heavily in public relations over the Internet. News and events are actively displayed on the Church’s website. Each parish also has a website of its own.
The icon nook of an Orthodox home at Easter. The festival of the Resurrection of Christ is the greatest festival in the Church.

Photo: Petter Martiskainen

Ecclesiastical art

There has been growing interest in icon painting and in the church music of the Orthodox Church in Finland in recent decades. There are several icon painting clubs and active church choirs in Finland. Both these forms of ecclesiastical art attract interest even outside the Church.

The art treasures of the Church are maintained by the conservation institute at the monastery of New Valamo. Church textiles are repaired at the Church Museum in Kuopio. The seamstress’s shop of the Church, manufacturing church textiles and liturgical vestments, is also in Kuopio.
The main church of the New Valamo monastery was consecrated in 1977. The church is sacred to the memory of the Glorification of Christ. The icons and other sacred items are mainly from the old Valamo monastery.

Photo: Petter Martiskainen

International relations of the Church

The autonomous Orthodox Church of Finland has good relations with both older and younger local Orthodox churches. It is particularly important for the Church that it has a warm and confident relationship with the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and its historical mother church, the Orthodox Church of Russia. The Church has participated actively in inter-ecclesiastical international work since the 1960s, and it is a member of the World Council of Churches. The Church also engages in theological debates with various other denominations

Today, the Orthodox Church of Finland is an integral part of Finnish society and its spiritual life. It maintains the ancient tradition and spiritual testimony of the Church of the East in a Western-oriented country.

Published May 2003

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