The Church of Sweden is an Evangelical Lutheran national church in Sweden. A former state church, headquartered in Uppsala, with around 5.6 million members at year end 2021, 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.
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 Laestadians 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 vigorous Christian life. It is also related to its non-Lutheran Radical Pietism offshoot that either diversified or spread into various denominations or traditions, and has also had a contributing influence over the interdenominational Evangelical Christianity movement.
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.
A pastor is the leader of a Christian congregation who also gives advice and counsel to people from the community or congregation. In Lutheranism, Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy and Anglicanism, pastors are always ordained. In Methodism, pastors may be either licensed or ordained.
The Laestadian Lutheran Church (LLC) is a religious Christian movement, its teachings 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.
Lars Levi Laestadius was a Swedish Sami 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 was also a noted botanist and an author. Laestadius himself became a teetotaller in the 1840s, when he began successfully awakening his Sami parishioners to the misery and destruction alcohol was causing them.
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 Laestadian church arrived in North America with Nordic 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.
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 Occident, from the latter half of the nineteenth century, and yet keep elements of Eastern Christianity, to varying degrees. Some of these denominations came into being, when existing Protestant churches adopted reformational variants of Eastern and Oriental Orthodox liturgy and worship. Some others are the result of reformations of Orthodox beliefs and practices, inspired by the teachings of Western Protestant missionaries. Some Eastern Protestant Churches are in communion with similar Western Protestant Churches. However, Eastern Protestant Christianity does not constitute a single communion. This is due to the diverse polities, practices, liturgies and orientations of the denominations which fall under this category.
Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying with the theology of Martin Luther, a 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Roman Catholic Church launched the Protestant Reformation. The reaction of the government and church authorities to the international spread of his writings, beginning with the Ninety-five Theses, divided Western Christianity. During the Reformation, Lutheranism became the state religion of numerous states of northern Europe, especially in northern Germany, Scandinavia and the then Livonian Order. Lutheran clergy became civil servants and the Lutheran churches became part of the state.
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.
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 Sami 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.
Baptists in Finland have existed since the middle of the 19th century. They are part of the Baptist branch of Protestant Christianity and belong to three different Finnish church associations. Swedish-speaking Finns formed the Swedish Baptist Union of Finland, while Finnish-speaking Baptists are united in the Finnish Baptist Church ; two Finnish congregations are a part of the Seventh Day Baptists. In addition, a few independent Baptist churches exist, including Grace Baptist Church in Tampere. The congregation was formerly known as Perinteinen Baptistiseurakunta in Finnish and International Baptist Church in English. Agape International Baptist Church in Pedersöre is also among the independent Baptist churches.
