The Laestadian church arrived in North America with Nordic (especially Finnish and Sami) immigrants in the latter half of the 19th century, many of whom came to work in the copper mines of the Keweenaw Peninsula. Some of these new immigrants found themselves in conflict with older, established immigrants from the same countries, being generally poorer and less established, and hewing to the new, fundamentalist teachings of Lars Levi Laestadius, a Swedish-Sami preacher and botanist born in Arjeplog, Sweden. Laestadian congregations separate from the extant Scandinavian Lutheran churches were formed in Cokato, Minnesota, in 1872 and in Calumet, Michigan, in 1873.
Torola group – 4,000 members in the United States (First Apostolic Lutheran Church)
Reedites (pollarites) – 3,500 members in the United States (Independent Apostolic Lutheran Church)
Aunesites – 550 members in the United States (The Apostolic Lutheran Church)
Grace Apostolic Lutheran Church – about 200 members in South Carolina
Davidites – 40 members in the United States
Melvinites – 20 members in the United States
Terminology
Each congregation generally has a name they call themselves, which frequently differs from the name used in this article. In particular, First Apostolic adherents would recoil at being labelled "Laestadian" because for them, "Laestadians" are the opposing side of the 1973 schism. In the interest of editorial clarity, this article uses an internally consistent naming scheme which differs from the names congregations apply to themselves. The term "Laestadian" is used as an umbrella to refer to all churches with a clear succession of belief from the teachings of Lars Levi Laestadius. The respective branches of Laestadian churches recognize their roots with the teachings of Lars Levi Laestadius to varying degrees. The Old Apostolic Lutheran Church, for example, will read a postilla (sermon) of Laestadius along with a text from the Bible with every church service. In contrast, the Pollari congregations do not recognize Laestadius in any of their liturgy and he is not given any special emphasis in their teachings.
The term "Apostolic" does not refer to the doctrine of apostolic succession; rather, it denotes an effort to live as near as possible in the Laestadian view to the Apostle's doctrines and practices.
Congregations and concentrations
As of 2017, significant concentrations of Laestadian adherents and churches which can trace their roots to Laestadianism exist in the following locales:[citation needed]
American Laestadians practice varied degrees of fundamentalist Christian belief. Most Laestadians avoid alcohol; varying numbers of adherents avoid a number of "worldly" practices, including dancing, card-playing, cinema, television, popular music, and the performing arts (listed in approximate order of avoidance). However, caffeine is widely consumed and tobacco is generally tolerated, but preached against when under 18 as most jurisdictions have laws against minors purchasing tobacco products. Family size tends to be large compared to the American average; most families in non-urban congregations have between 4 and 10 children, while most churches have a few families with 12 or 15 children. Birth control is generally not practiced; it is preached as sin unless after consideration and counsel with medical doctors it is determined to be necessary for the health of the mother. Birth control is not tolerated because it prevents a child from being born and each child is a gift from God.
Laestadian asceticism is distinguished from other American fundamentalist Christians in that none of the above-mentioned pastimes is officially proscribed; rather, Laestadians counsel each other and employ a reinforcing system of social feedback to encourage abstention. Active congregations provide social outlets in keeping with the beliefs of the church; nearly every weekend evening will find Laestadian teenagers congregating at one or another's home (get-togethers), preferably with adults present.
Laestadian churches, in keeping with the Holy Bible, teach that every human is a sinner and that every sin can be forgiven; forgiveness stems from the hearts of Laestadians, not from ceremony or hierarchy. Some Laestadians practice lay confession, whereby a member confesses to another member; in the Heidemanian tradition, some vestige of this practice remains in the liturgy but confession is not widely practiced.
Some Laestadian congregations consider themselves the one, true Christian church, and preach that all other Christian churches (including other branches of the Laestadian tradition) are not true Christians.
Ceremony and service in the Heidemanian tradition
American Laestadian churches provide services in Finnish to varying degrees; As of 2000[update], every service in some congregations is bilingual, while in others only special occasions merit translation, and in yet others all preaching is done in English. In any case, a Laestadian may request to receive Communion in Finnish; another lay member of the congregation can deliver Communion if the pastor is not fluent. Communion is the only regularly practiced ceremony (performed once or twice a month, or every week, depending on the congregation), and consists of unleavened wafers and wine (sometimes grape juice), delivered assembly-line fashion at a communion rail at the conclusion of Sunday services.
Teenagers undergo Confirmation around age 13 to 15, after which they are eligible for communion. Other significant life ceremonies are baptism (performed during the first months of life, and rarely for adult converts) and marriage.
The Old Apostolic Lutheran congregations hold annual Elders' Meetings, often combined with St. John's summer services, several days to one week long, with guest preachers delivering evening sermons each weekday and two or more church services on the bracketing Sundays. Elders (senior preachers) from Lapland are invited to teach. Many church members follow the elders as they travel across America visiting different congregations. Other Apostolic Lutheran bodies hold similar "big services," in which members of multiple congregations gather in one location to hear speakers from the United States and from Scandinavia (if they have a cooperating European counterpart).
Laestadianism, also known as Laestadian Lutheranism and Apostolic Lutheranism, is a pietistic Lutheran revival movement started in Sápmi in the middle of the 19th century. Named after Swedish Lutheran state church administrator and temperance movement leader Lars Levi Laestadius, it is the biggest pietistic revivalist movement in the Nordic countries. It has members mainly in Finland, Northern America, Norway, Russia, and Sweden. There are also smaller congregations in Africa, South America, and Central Europe. In addition Laestadian Lutherans have missionaries in 23 countries. The number of Laestadians worldwide is estimated to be between 144,000 and 219,000.
Pietism, also known as Pietistic Lutheranism, is a movement within Lutheranism that combines its emphasis on biblical doctrine with an emphasis on individual piety and living a holy Christian life.
The Laestadian Lutheran Church (LLC) is a religious Christian movement, which claims its teachings are based on the Bible and the Lutheran Confessions. From June 9, 1973, the organisation was named the Association of American Laestadian Congregations (AALC), before the association changed its name in 1994 in order better to convey its spiritual heritage. As of 2016, the Laestadian Lutheran Church has 33 member congregations in the United States and Canada, with highest concentrations of members in Minnesota, Washington, Arizona, Michigan in the United States and in Saskatchewan, Canada; the congregations are served by about 90 ministers, nearly all of them lay preachers.
The Church of the Lutheran Brethren of America (CLBA) is a Lutheran denomination of Christians rooted in a Pietist Lutheran spiritual awakening at the turn of the 20th century.
Lars Levi Laestadius was a Swedish Sami writer, ecologist, mythologist, and ethnographer as well as a pastor and administrator of the Swedish state Lutheran church in Lapland who founded the Laestadian pietist revival movement to help his largely Sami congregations, who were being ravaged by alcoholism. Laestadius himself became a teetotaller in the 1840s, when he began successfully talking his Sami parishioners out of alcoholism. Laestadius was also a noted botanist and an author.
Finnish Americans comprise Americans with ancestral roots in Finland, or Finnish people who immigrated to and reside in the United States. The Finnish-American population is around 650,000. Many Finnish people historically immigrated to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and the Iron Range of northern Minnesota to work in the mining industry; much of the population in these regions is of Finnish descent.
The Apostolic Lutheran Church of America (ALCA) is a Laestadian Lutheran church denomination established by Finnish American and Norwegian immigrants in the 1800s. They came mainly from northern Finland and northern Norway where they had been members of the state churches. Most or all members had ties from their home countries to the Laestadian revival movement named after Swedish state church administrator and pastor Lars Levi Laestadius of Pajala, Sweden. Eventually, there were too many arguments between this denomination and the other American Laestadians, and some of the followers of Laestadius were excluded from the sacrament of holy communion. Under the lead of Salomon Korteniemi, the excluded members formed a congregation of their own in December 1872, under the name the Salomon Korteniemi Lutheran Society. In 1879 this name was changed to the Finnish Apostolic Lutheran Congregation. As other congregations of Finns in Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, and Oregon were organized on the same basis, they came into fellowship with this body under the name the Finnish Apostolic Lutheran Church, or, as it is usually called, the Apostolic Lutheran Church.
Summer services is the annual meeting of the Finnish Lutheran movement known as Conservative Laestadians. In addition to the primary Finnish gathering, similar meetings are arranged in North America, Sweden and Russia.
Conservative Laestadianism is the largest branch of the Lutheran revival movement Laestadianism. It has spread to 16 countries. As of 2012 there were about 115,000 Conservative Laestadians, most of them in Finland, the United States, Norway, and Sweden. The movement and this denomination attribute their teachings to the Bible and the Lutheran Book of Concord.
Firstborn Laestadians are a subgroup within the Laestadian Lutheran revival movement. The Firstborn are known for their traditionalism and their conservative pietistic ideals, and they seek to avoid "worldly pleasures". The name "Firstborn" derives from the Bible's Epistle to the Hebrews, Heb. 12:23, which mentions "the church of the firstborn".
The term Eastern Protestant Christianity encompasses a range of heterogeneous Protestant Christian denominations that developed outside of the Western world, from the latter half of the nineteenth century, and retain certain elements of Eastern Christianity. Some of these denominations came into existence when active Protestant churches adopted reformational variants of Eastern and Oriental Orthodox liturgy and worship, while others originated from Orthodox groups who were inspired by the teachings of Western Protestant missionaries and adopted Protestant beliefs and practices.
The Sámi revolt in Guovdageaidnu, also known as the Kautokeino uprising, was a revolt in the village of Kautokeino in Kautokeino Municipality in northern Norway in 1852 by a group of Sámi who attacked representatives of the Norwegian authorities. The rebels killed the local merchant and the local lensmann, whipped their servants and the village priest, and burned down the merchant's house. The rebels were later seized by other Sámi, who killed two of the rebels in the process. Two of the leaders, Mons Somby and Aslak Hætta, were later executed by the Norwegian government.
Lutheranism is a major branch of Protestantism that identifies 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 ended the Middle Ages and, in 1517, launched the Reformation.
Greasewood Finnish Apostolic Lutheran Church is a historic pioneer church located 5 miles west of Adams, Oregon. It was built by volunteers on donated land in 1884 to serve the immigrant Finnish Laestadian community. Services were held in Finnish both for the immigrants and their children, whose mother tongue was also Finnish. After breakups within the Laestadian community, this church affiliated with the Apostolic Lutheran Church of America. Due to the remote location, preachers from surrounding areas as well as the American Midwest, and even as far away as Finland, were brought in to speak.
Mathilda Fogman (1835–1921) was a Swedish and Finnish midwife. She had an influential position within Laestadianism in Övertorneå, something quite unique for her gender, as women usually had a low position within the Laestadian movement.
The Old Apostolic Lutheran Church of America (OALC) is a Firstborn Laestadian church in North America. Firstborn Laestadians are a subgroup within Laestadianism. The Old Apostolic Lutheran Church originated in the 1890s. In the Nordic Firstborn Laestadian revival, the movement works within the official Church of Sweden, which is also called the "Lutheran Folk Church". The Church of Sweden has for a long time recognized the Laestadian movement and has allowed them to hold their own services in the state churches, both before and after the separation of church and state. Even in America it still has a relationship with the Church of Sweden.
Oskari Heikki Jussila was a Conservative Laestadian provost, vicar for multiple parishes, and the area provost of the Tornio area in 1938–1955. He also worked as editor for the religious newspapers Siionin lähetyslehti and Zions missionstidning in 1919–1945, as well as a member of parliament with the National Coalition Party in 1922–1929 and 1930–1933. Jussila's father was Heikki Jussila (1863-1955), a Conservative Laestadian lay preacher and Volksschule teacher.
Milla Clementsdotter (also known as, Milla Clemensdotter, Maria of Lappland was a Swedish Southern Sámi woman who is remembered for guiding Lars Levi Laestadius in questions of Christian faith. She belonged to a revival movement marked by Pietistic and Moravian influences, a member of a group known as "Readers", a background shared by Laestadius' mother.
The Laestadius family is a Swedish family originally from Ångermanland, and mostly noted for its member Lars Levi Laestadius, the founder of the pietistic Lutheran revival movement, Laestadianism.
Läsare or the Reader movement was a Swedish Pietistic Christian revival movement of people who stressed the importance of reading, that is, reading the Bible and other Christian literature. It was influenced by both the Herrnhuters and the Methodists and has been described by scholar George M. Stephenson as a "second religious reformation in Sweden".
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