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- Title
The Lutheran Church of Finland and the Civil War 1918: The status of the Finnish Lutheran Church in 1918.
- Authors
Huhta, Ilkka
- Abstract
This article analyses the positioning of the Lutheran Church of Finland, its congregations, and its clergy during the months of the Civil War in Finland. In relation to the size of the population, the Civil War of Finland was, at the time, the bloodiest in European history. The Lutheran Church was still considered the common church of the people, and almost all Finns were parishioners and, thus, members of the Lutheran church. The Civil War, ultimately, took place between members of the church. Slightly more than half of Finnish parishes were counted to be on the side of the Whites. The attitudes of ordinary parish pastors towards the war varied from active participation to passively standing by. Either publicly or in secret, the bishops and most of the Church's pastors expressed their support for the goals of White Finland. Although this image of history can be substantiated, it fails to adequately reveal all the aspects of the church's work besides the actions of its bishops and pastors. In the parishes caught up on the Red side, the life of the clergy changed more than was the case in parishes ruled by the Whites. Although the clergy in its actions and attitudes did not act entirely unanimously in the Civil War, the post-war views of the victors tend to dominate the subsequent image of the Church.
- Subjects
LUTHERAN Church; CIVIL war
- Publication
Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte: Internationale Zeitschrift für Theologie und Geschichtswissenschaft, 2019, Vol 32, Issue 1, p134
- ISSN
0932-9951
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.13109/kize.2019.32.1.134