A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities or alone (hermits). A monastery generally includes a place reserved for prayer which may be a chapel, church, or temple, and may also serve as an oratory, or in the case of communities anything from a single building housing only one senior and two or three junior monks or nuns, to vast complexes and estates housing tens or hundreds. A monastery complex typically comprises a number of buildings which include a church, dormitory, cloister, refectory, library, balneary and infirmary and outlying granges. Depending on the location, the monastic order and the occupation of its inhabitants, the complex may also include a wide range of buildings that facilitate self-sufficiency and service to the community. These may include a hospice, a school, and a range of agricultural and manufacturing buildings such as a barn, a forge, or a brewery.
Savonlinna is a town in Finland, located in the eastern interior of the country. It lies in the Finnish Lakeland, the South Savo region. The population of Savonlinna is approximately 31,000, while the sub-region has a population of approximately 38,000. It is the 36th most populous municipality in Finland.
The Church of Sweden is an Evangelical Lutheran national church in Sweden. A former state church, headquartered in Uppsala, with around 5.4 million members at year end 2023, it is the largest Christian denomination in Sweden, the largest Lutheran denomination in Europe and the third-largest in the world, after the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania.
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.
Eastern Finland was a province of Finland from 1997 to 2009. It bordered the provinces of Oulu, Western Finland and Southern Finland. It also bordered Russia to the east.
The Orthodox Church of Finland or Finnish Orthodox Church is an autonomous Eastern Orthodox archdiocese of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. The church has a legal position as a national church in the country, along with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland.
Enonkoski is a municipality of Finland. It is encircled by the city of Savonlinna in the Southern Savonia region. It is the smallest municipality in Southern Savonia in terms of population.
The International Lutheran Council (ILC) is a worldwide association of confessional Lutheran denominations. Member bodies of the ILC hold "an unconditional commitment to the Holy Scriptures as the inspired and infallible Word of God and to the Lutheran Confessions contained in the Book of Concord as the true and faithful exposition of the Word of God." The member church bodies are not required to be in church-fellowship with one another, though many of them are.
Christian monasticism is a religious way of life of Christians who live ascetic and typically cloistered lives that are dedicated to Christian worship. It began to develop early in the history of the Christian Church, modeled upon scriptural examples and ideals, including those in the Old Testament. It has come to be regulated by religious rules and, in modern times, the Canon law of the respective Christian denominations that have forms of monastic living. Those living the monastic life are known by the generic terms monks (men) and nuns (women). The word monk originated from the Greek μοναχός, itself from μόνος meaning 'alone'.
Confessional Lutheranism is a name used by Lutherans to designate those who believe in the doctrines taught in the Book of Concord of 1580 in their entirety. Confessional Lutherans maintain that faithfulness to the Book of Concord, which is a summary of the teachings found in Scripture, requires attention to how that faith is actually being preached, taught, and put into practice. Confessional Lutherans believe that this is a vital part of their identity as Lutherans.
The term Evangelical Catholic is used in Lutheranism, alongside the terms Augsburg Catholic or Augustana Catholic, with those calling themselves Evangelical Catholic Lutherans or Lutherans of Evangelical Catholic churchmanship stressing the catholicity of historic Lutheranism in liturgy, beliefs, practices, and doctrines. Evangelical Catholics teach that Lutheranism at its core "is deeply and fundamentally catholic". The majority of Evangelical Catholic Lutheran clergy and parishes are members of mainstream Lutheran denominations.
High church Lutheranism is a movement that began in 20th-century Europe and emphasizes worship practices and doctrines that are similar to those found within Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy and Anglo-Catholicism. In the more general usage of the term, it describes the general high church characteristics of Lutheranism in Nordic and Baltic countries such as Sweden, Finland, Estonia and Latvia. The mentioned countries, once a part of the Swedish Empire, have more markedly preserved Catholic traditions.
The Catholic Church in Finland is part of the worldwide Catholic Church, under the spiritual leadership of the Pope in Rome.
Finland is a predominantly Christian nation where 63.6% of the Finnish population of 5.6 million are members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland (Protestant), 33.6% are unaffiliated, 1.0% are Orthodox Christians, 0.9% are other Christians and 0.9% follow other religions like Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, folk religion etc. These statistics do not include, for example, asylum seekers who have not been granted a permanent residence permit.
Religion in Namibia is dominated by various branches of Christianity, with more than 90 percent of Namibian citizens identifying themselves as Christian. According to the government's survey, in 2013 up to two-thirds of the country was Protestant, including as much as 44% Lutheran.
The Diocese of Mikkeli is one of nine dioceses in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland. It was founded in 1897 in the town of Savonlinna. Later, in 1924 the episcopal see was moved to Viipuri, but after Finland lost the city to the Soviet Union, the see was moved to Mikkeli in 1945. It has since been located there.
Ilmari Johannes Salomies, previously Salonen, was the Archbishop of Turku, and the spiritual head of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland between 1951 and 1964.
The Mission Diocese, officially the Evangelical Lutheran Mission Diocese of Finland, is an independent confessional Lutheran "ecclesial structure" in Finland. The Mission Diocese considers itself to be "part of ‘the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church’" to be "truly a church" and to act "fully independently as a church", although it has not applied for state-recognition as a registered religious community. The Mission Diocese has its origins in the conservative movements of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland (ELCF) and it self-identifies as existing in the same continuum of Lutheran faith and congregational life of the ELCF whose spiritual heritage it cherishes, yet not being part of its administrative structures.
Tapiola Church is a Lutheran church in the Tapiola district of Espoo, Finland. The modernist concrete building in brutalist style was designed by the architect Aarno Ruusuvuori and opened in 1965. The church seats 600 people and is thus the largest in Espoo by capacity.
