The Eucharist, also known as Holy Communion, Blessed Sacrament and the Lord's Supper, is a Christian rite that is considered a sacrament in most churches, and as an ordinance in others. Christians believe that the rite was instituted by Jesus at the Last Supper, the night before his crucifixion, giving his disciples bread and wine. Passages in the New Testament state that he commanded them to "do this in memory of me" while referring to the bread as "my body" and the cup of wine as "the blood of my covenant, which is poured out for many". According to the Synoptic Gospels this was at a Passover meal.
Turku is a city in Finland and the regional capital of Southwest Finland. It is located on the southwestern coast of the country at the mouth of the River Aura. The population of Turku is approximately 202,000, while the metropolitan area has a population of approximately 311,000. It is the 6th most populous municipality in Finland, and the third most populous urban area in the country after Helsinki and Tampere.
Porvoo is a city in Finland. It is located on the south coast of the country, on the Gulf of Finland. Porvoo lies in the eastern part of the Uusimaa region. The population of Porvoo is approximately 51,000, while the sub-region has a population of approximately 59,000. It is the 19th most populous municipality in Finland, and the 15th most populous urban area in the country.
Mikael Agricola was a Finnish Lutheran clergyman who became the de facto founder of literary Finnish and a prominent proponent of the Protestant Reformation in Sweden, including Finland, which was a Swedish territory at the time. He is often called the "father of literary Finnish".
Ukko, Äijä or Äijö, parallel to Uku in Estonian mythology, is the god of the sky, weather, harvest, and thunder in Finnish mythology.
Mika Toimi Waltari was a Finnish writer, best known for his best-selling novel The Egyptian. He was extremely productive. Besides his novels he also wrote poetry, short stories, crime novels, plays, essays, travel stories, film scripts, and rhymed texts for comic strips by Asmo Alho.
Oskar Merikanto was a Finnish composer, music critic, pianist, and organist.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church of 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.
Karelian is a Finnic language spoken mainly in the Russian Republic of Karelia. Linguistically, Karelian is closely related to the Finnish dialects spoken in eastern Finland, and some Finnish linguists have even classified Karelian as a dialect of Finnish, though in the modern day it is widely considered a separate language. Karelian is not to be confused with the Southeastern dialects of Finnish, sometimes referred to as karjalaismurteet in Finland. In the Russian 2020–2021 census, around 9,000 people spoke Karelian natively, but around 14,000 said to be able to speak the language.
Väinämöinen is a demigod, hero and the central character in Finnish folklore and the main character in the national epic Kalevala by Elias Lönnrot. Väinämöinen was described as an old and wise man, and he possessed a potent, magical singing voice.
Paavo Juhani Haavikko was a Finnish poet, playwright, essayist and publisher, considered one of the country's most outstanding writers. He published more than 70 works, and his poems have been translated to 12 languages.
Iku-Turso is a malevolent sea monster in Finnish mythology, best known for appearing in the Kalevala. Nowadays Meritursas means octopus in Finnish, named after Iku-Turso, but originally tursas is an old name for walrus while the more common term is mursu. However, it is more common to see the word mustekala, the name of its Subclass Coleoidea in Finnish, for the octopus.
Se Wsi Testamenti is the first translation of the New Testament in Finnish; it was published in 1548. It was translated by Mikael Agricola, then rector of the Turku Cathedral School and later Bishop of Turku.
Finnish is a Uralic language of the Finnic branch, spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by ethnic Finns outside of Finland. Finnish is one of the two official languages of Finland. In Sweden, both Finnish and Meänkieli are official minority languages. The Kven language, which like Meänkieli is mutually intelligible with Finnish, is spoken in the Norwegian counties Troms and Finnmark by a minority group of Finnish descent.
Lutheranism is a major branch of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practices of the Catholic Church launched the Protestant Reformation.
Hannu Veikko Luntiala is the former Director General of the Population Register Centre in Finland and an author for Tammi and Aviador Kustannus, both Finnish publishing companies.
The Karelian language is spoken in Russia, mostly in the Karelian Republic and in a small region just north of Tver, though most residents there were expelled in 1939. Karelian has seen numerous proposed and adopted alphabets over the centuries, both Latin and Cyrillic. In 2007, the current standardized Karelian alphabet was introduced and is used to write all varieties of Karelian, including Tver Karelian which adopted it in 2017.
Irreligion in Finland: according to Statistics Finland in 2020, 29.4% of the population in Finland were non-religious, or about 1,628,000 people. The Union of Freethinkers of Finland and other organisations have acted as interest organisations, legal protection organisations and cultural organisations for non-religious people. In a 2018 international ISSP survey, 40% of the Finnish population said they did not believe in God, 34% said they believed in God and 26% did not know. Nearly one out of every five people in the country is not a member of a religious organisation, and the number of people with no religious affiliation has doubled in two decades.
The African diaspora in Finland refers to the residents of Finland of full or partial African ancestry, mostly from Sub-Saharan Africa. According to Statistics Finland, the total number of people in Finland with a close African background was 57,496 in 2020.
Arthur Ludvig Mikael Hjelt was a Finnish theologian, professor, member of parliament and writer.
