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Shortly after Finland declared independence from Russia in 1917, the Finnish Orthodox Church declared its autonomy from the Russian Orthodox Church. In 1923, the Finnish Church completly separated from the Russian Church, becoming an autonomous part of the Orthodox Church of ConstantinopleThe Orthodox Church of Constantinople is one of the fifteen autocephalous Eastern Orthodox churches. It is headed by the Ecumenical Patriarch, and has the status of "first among equals" among the world's Orthodox bishops. The local Churches of the Ecumeni. The Gregorian Calendar was also adopted. Other reforms introduced after independence include changing the language of high mass from Church SlavonicChurch Slavonic may refer to: Old Church Slavonic language Church Slavonic language. to FinnishFinnish is spoken by the majority in Finland and by Ethnic Finns outside of Finland. It is one of two official languages of Finland. Finnish is a member of the Finno-Ugric language family and is an agglutinative language which modifies the forms of both n and the transfer of the Archepiscopal seat from the multicultural ( FinnishFinnish is spoken by the majority in Finland and by Ethnic Finns outside of Finland. It is one of two official languages of Finland. Finnish is a member of the Finno-Ugric language family and is an agglutinative language which modifies the forms of both n, SwedishSwedish svenska is a language spoken principally in Sweden, Finland finlandsvenska , Aland and in the coastland of Estonia estlandssvenska . Swedish is classified as a member of the East section of the Scandinavian languages, a sub-group of the Germanic g, KarelianThe Karelian language is a variety closely related to Finnish. It belongs to the Finno-Ugric languages, and is chiefly distinguished from standard Finnish by the lack of influence from modern 19th and 20th century Finnish. The Karelian language does not h, RussianRussian /'ruski j'zk/) is the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages. Russian belongs to the group of Indo-European languages, and is therefore related to Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin, as well as the modern Germanic, Romance, and Celtic languages, inclu and GermanGerman (called Deutsch in German in which germanisch refers to prechristian times), is a member of the western group of Germanic languages and one of the world's major languages. It is the language with the most native speakers in the European Union. speaking, having also biggest Jewish community) city of Viipuri to the Finnish speaking city of Sortavala.
Until World War II, the majority of the Orthodox Christians in Finland were in Karelia. As a consequence of the war, many residents of that border province evacuated to other parts of the country. The monastery of
Valamo was evacuated in 1940 and the monastery of New Valamo was founded in 1941 at Heinävesi. Later, the monks from Konevitsa and Petsamo monasteries also joined the New Valamo monastery. The nunnery of Lintula at Kivennapa (Karelian Isthmus) was also evacuated, and re-established at Heinävesi in 1946. A new parish network was established, and many new churches were built in the 1950s. After the city of Viipuri was lost to the Soviet Union, its Diocesan seat was moved to Helsinki. A third Diocese was established at Oulu in 1979.To this day, Orthodoxy is practiced mostly by Russians, Karelians and the Sami (Koltta Tribe), although it has shed the image of the privileged class it was once associated with. The Orthodox Christian Church has about 60.000 members.
Finland Eastern Orthodox churches