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Mormonism

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints came to Finland for the first time in the 1870s from Sweden. However, it became established in the Finnish society only soon after the Second World War. Church opened their mission field in Finland officially in autumn 1947 and it was registered as an official religious community in Finland in 1948. First it was led by American missionaries until later being handed over to its Finnish members. Even though the public image of the church is strongly American because of its missionaries, the local membership has a wide-ranging profile of Finnish people represented in profession-wise, education-wise, and political opinion-wise. The biggest growth in the membership of the church happened at the turn of the 1950s and ’60s. Especially in the beginning, the vast majority of the members were women. A significant milestone for the church in Finland was in 2006 when a temple building was completed in Espoo. The church has many parish centres around Finland but the temples for the holy rituals are rare in the world: there were altogether about 150 temples in 2016. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has 30 congregations and 3259 members (2015) in Finland.

D 24 June 2021    AAnita Sipilä

CNRS Unistra Dres Gsrl

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