The Lutheran Church amid Modernization

The new Church Law was enacted at a time when the Lutheran Church was trying to find its feet in modern Finnish society. Under Swedish rule, Lutheranism had been the state religion since the end of the sixteenth century.Footnote ⁸ Amid modernization, the old uniform Lutheran culture started to shatter. Urbanization, industrialization, migration and different religious and secular worldviews challenged the church's position and forced it to reconsider its established ways of working. As in many other parts of Europe, declining church attendance was linked to secularizing trends in society.Footnote ⁹ Religion was still important, but it ‘ceased to provide a common language’, as Hugh McLeod puts it.Footnote ¹⁰

In 1809, Sweden ceded Finland, until then its eastern province, to the Russian empire. Tsar Alexander I, an Orthodox Christian, promised to uphold the Lutheran faith of his new province, which was officially known as the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland until its independence in 1917.Footnote ¹¹ The Church Law of 1869 strengthened the Lutheran Church's position by formally separating church and state: the new law applied only to members of the Lutheran Church, not to all the country's inhabitants. The Tsar and the estates still had the right to approve or discard any modifications made to ecclesiastical law, but only the General Synod, the highest legislative organ of the church, could propose amendments to its content. The Church Law of 1869 tore down some of the old power hierarchies. In 1854, Frans Ludvig Schauman, a professor of theology and bishop of Porvoo from 1865 to 1877, was put in charge of preparing the new law. For Schauman, the Lutheran Church was both an important national institution and a community of believers, so parishioners needed to have some control in matters that concerned them. Laymen were given decision-making power at all levels of administration, and in the General Synod they had the majority of seats.Footnote ¹²

Strengthening the position of the lay sermon was a part of this larger democratization process in the Lutheran Church. Domestic revival movements also had an impact on the new law. The four big revival movements in Finland – the Laestadians, the Prayer movement, the Awakened, and the evangelicalsFootnote ¹³ – had all established their position with the help of lay preachers. These movements have their origins in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.Footnote ¹⁴ By creating a system in which permission to preach could be granted to laymen, the Lutheran Church gave institutional acknowledgement to lay preaching. The basic idea of permission to preach (venia concionandi) had already appeared in the previous legislation, which dated from 1686. According to Hans Cnattingius, it was used mainly to prepare theology students for the ministry by letting them assist pastors.Footnote ¹⁵ The Church Law of 1869 continued this practice, but these future pastors lie beyond the scope of this article.

Applicants for Permission to Preach: Allies or Enemies?

Between 1870 and 1923, 313 men applied for permission to preach. In the populous dioceses of Turku and Porvoo, the number of applicants was significantly higher than in the country's eastern and northern regions. During the decades examined here, the chapter of Porvoo evaluated 136 applicants and Turku 110; in the diocese of Kuopio, which was the largest of all the dioceses but sparsely populated, the number of applicants was 42. The diocese of Savonlinna was formed in 1897 from the eastern congregations of the older Porvoo diocese.Footnote ¹⁶ By 1923, it had had 36 applicants.Footnote ¹⁷

The law provided only loose guidelines regarding the qualifications required: ‘For reputable and Christian-minded spirits, the bishop and the chapter may, after testing them, give permission to preach and take part in teaching Christianity in the congregation.’Footnote ¹⁸ Nothing is said about gender, but all the applicants between 1870 and 1923 were men.Footnote ¹⁹ Considering how critical the Lutheran Church in this period was of female preachers, this is no surprise. Public teaching and preaching were seen as the domain of men, while women's God-given calling lay in the private sphere of the home.Footnote ²⁰ This attitude was also reflected at an administrative level. It was not until 1933 that the General Synod allowed women to take part in its meetings as delegates.Footnote ²¹ There had, however, been famous female preachers in domestic revival movements. Women tended to have a more visible role in the early phases of revivals, but as the movements became more stable and organized, men usually took charge.Footnote ²² The permission to preach system strengthened the idea that men and women had different religious vocations.

Applicants for permission to preach were generally devout men who longed to take part in God's work. In 1882, ambulatory school teacher Johan Lehtonen explained to the Turku chapter that the reason for his humble plea was ‘a heartfelt desire and love for spreading God's word in a non-sectarian way’.Footnote ²³ Some applicants believed that they had been called directly by God to become preachers. In 1910, teacher Juho Rajavaara wrote to the chapter of Savonlinna that ‘God wants to use me as his meagre instrument’.Footnote ²⁴ Since licensed lay preachers were officially acknowledged by the Lutheran Church, it was important to make sure they were not only Christian but church-minded as well. The Baptists and Methodists were the first dissenting movements to arrive in Finland in the 1850s, and the Salvation Army and the Adventists soon followed; Pentecostals arrived in the country at the beginning of the twentieth century.Footnote ²⁵ The system of granting permission to preach could not stop the new groups from spreading, but it did offer the church another means of control. Pastors could refuse to let unlicensed preachers speak in churches, which were the heart of traditional, clerically-led religious life. Strong dissenting sympathies would hopefully be revealed in the application process. For example, Nikolai Smorodin's application in 1912 was denied when the chapter of Savonlinna found out he was not only a leading figure in the Russian Pentecostal movement but also ‘apparently not a member of the Lutheran Church of Finland’.Footnote ²⁶

The domestic revival movements had also challenged and reshaped the church from within. Since the second half of the nineteenth century, these movements had, for the most part, managed to co-exist peaceably with the church, but confrontations could not be completely avoided. Many pastors, including the long-standing archbishop, Gustaf Johansson (in office from 1899 to 1930), were strongly opposed to the Laestadians and considered them a sect which did not respect the Lutheran Church's authority.Footnote ²⁷ Due to the tense relationship between the church and the movement, only a handful of Laestadian preachers applied for permission to preach.Footnote ²⁸ Another group to cause disagreement among the clergy were the evangelicals. Men with evangelical backgrounds were frequently seen amongst the applicants. This was due mainly to the Lutheran Evangelical Association of Finland, founded in 1873, with its travelling booksellers and lay preachers. The association proclaimed that it wanted to support the Lutheran Church, but critics complained that some of the evangelical preachers were only keen to talk about salvation, not about bettering one's ways. They were also accused of openly challenging the authority of local pastors.Footnote ²⁹

Means of Control

The diocesan chapters were responsible for the practicalities of the application process. Aspiring preachers were carefully screened by a bishop, a dean and two pastor assessors. The full application comprised a freely composed application letter, letters of recommendation (sometimes missing) from employers or other individuals of standing and a certificate of character provided by the pastor of the applicant's home congregation.Footnote ³⁰ Applicants were required also to provide information about the level of their education. The chapter would test the applicants’ theological knowledge and practical skills in preaching and teaching. (According to the Church Law of 1869, only licensed lay preachers could preach in church buildings and take part in teaching Christianity in congregations, but many applicants already had some preaching experience, especially those active in revival movements.) In 1892, the bishops’ meeting proposed to the chapters that henceforth they should require applicants to write an essay on an exegetical, pastoral or theological topic chosen by the chapter.Footnote ³¹ The four chapters had slightly different practices, and there were several attempts to standardize these examinations. In 1912, the bishops’ meeting proposed that all applicants be tested in practical Bible knowledge, dogmatics, ecclesiastical history, catechesis and church law.Footnote ³² However, these requirements were not officially codified until 1932.Footnote ³³

The approval rates of the different dioceses varied. In the diocese of Kuopio, approximately half the applicants passed the examinations. The northern chapter was the only one to demand a statement about the applicant's skills, character and reputation, provided by the pastor of his home congregation. In the archdiocese of Turku and the diocese of Porvoo, the pass rates were around 54 per cent and 68 per cent respectively. In the diocese of Savonlinna, nearly 70 per cent of the applicants passed. In addition, many applications were not completed. To take the required examinations, applicants had to travel to the administrative centre of their diocese and present themselves before the chapter. This required time and money, which for some applicants were in short supply. Lack of money, time or interest are probably the main reasons why only a fraction of Finland's lay preachers applied for permission to preach. For the average preacher, the chapter's approval was more a feather in their cap than an absolute necessity.

Licensed lay preachers were expected to work under clerical guidance, and the less they moved, the easier it was to keep an eye on them. The Church Law stated that their field of work lay ‘in the congregation’, but it remained unclear whether the scope was a particular local congregation or the whole of Finland. When the topic was discussed in the General Synod meeting of 1893, the delegates eventually agreed that it was up to the chapters to decide how much leeway preachers could have.Footnote ³⁴ For example, in the dioceses of Kuopio and Savonlinna, permission to preach was usually valid for only one predetermined congregation.Footnote ³⁵ In 1912, the bishops’ meeting recommended that permission to preach should only be granted when the applicant had been called to serve a specific congregation or a reputable Christian association. Annual reports were another form of surveillance. In 1907, the archdiocese of Turku asked parish ministers to give an account of the number of licensed lay preachers living or working in their congregation and describe the impact their work had had on local religious life. Five years later, the bishops’ meeting advised the other chapters to follow the archdiocese's example.Footnote ³⁶

In addition to licensed lay preachers, the clergy also tried to keep all unlicensed preachers under supervision. Among them were both domestic and foreign preachers, men and women from various denominational backgrounds. However, the church had little control over these (often itinerant) preachers. The Church Law of 1869 had abolished the Conventicle Act of 1726, which had forbidden public religious meetings outside the church. According to the new law, vestries could prohibit preaching in public, but only if the preacher in question taught against Lutheran doctrine or caused a general disturbance. Pastors were also encouraged to visit religious gatherings as often as they could.Footnote ³⁷ However, for large and remote congregations, local religious authorities might not hear about visiting preachers until they were long gone.Footnote ³⁸

Lay preachers, both licensed and unlicensed, were frequently discussed by church institutions.Footnote ³⁹ The General Synod met every five years and considered propositions initiated by synod meetings, dioceses and individual delegates.Footnote ⁴⁰ It was suggested, for example, that preachers who wished to preach outside their own parish should always meet with the local pastor or vestry before organizing any meetings. Some wanted their skills to be tested in a similar way to licensed lay preachers.Footnote ⁴¹ In the General Synod meeting of 1886, lay delegate Sandbacka suggested that only ordained pastors or men with permission to preach should be allowed to preach in public.Footnote ⁴² Changing church law was not easy, since a proposal to do so needed to gain a three-quarters majority in a General Synod vote.Footnote ⁴³ Finding common ground in regard to lay preachers proved to be especially challenging.

In the Protestant tradition, lay preaching is often justified by the principle of the priesthood of all believers. According to Martin Luther, bishops, priests and laypeople are all servants of God's word and are, in principle, equals. Based on their faith and baptism, all believers are spiritual priests. Luther's words have often been interpreted as arguing that all believers are entitled to preach, which makes an ordained ministry redundant. According to many scholars, though, this was never his intention.Footnote ⁴⁴ The concept of the priesthood of all believers was a starting point for several debates in Finnish Synod and General Synod meetings as well. Many pastors and lay delegates insisted that restrictions on lay sermons were against the principle of the priesthood of all believers and the spirit of the new Church Law. Restraining lay sermons would signify a return to the era of the Conventicle Act. In modern Protestant society, there was simply no room for a purely clergy-led church. Some delegates were reminded that lay preachers had had an important role in the early Christian church, and even the apostles had been laymen. Restrictions could also harm the church if reputable, church-minded preachers became too cautious and ceased spreading God's word. Naturally, heresy should be fought, but only with spiritual weapons.Footnote ⁴⁵

Pastors and lay delegates who were in favour of restricting the lay sermon argued that the principle of the priesthood of all believers had been gravely misunderstood. Every member of the Lutheran Church had the right – even the obligation – to spread the gospel, but not in public. All believers were equal, but only some were called upon to become preachers. In addition to an inner God-given calling, aspiring preachers needed the approval of other believers. In the very first General Synod meeting in 1876, minister Bergh reminded that Luther himself was strongly opposed to self-ordained ‘corner priests’.Footnote ⁴⁶ Many critics emphasized that they had nothing against lay agency per se, but it was necessary to make sure that only preachers with good reputations, Christian lifestyles and acceptable views were allowed to speak to the flock. True friends of the church would be only too happy to obey stricter rules. Some claimed that it was the clergy's responsibility to protect parishes from disarray and false prophets, since the parishioners themselves tended to be both easily pleased and too often led astray by their curiosity.Footnote ⁴⁷

Of course, these concerns were by no means new or unique. For instance, the Church of Sweden had been balancing the calls of different domestic and foreign religious associations and their lay preachers since the early nineteenth century. In 1856, some sort of middle ground was found when the Evangelical Homeland Foundation (Evangeliska Fosterlandsstiftelsen) was established to organize domestic mission. Lay preacher Carl Olof Rosenius became the leading figure in this new agency. The foundation received both praise and criticism from Swedish clergy; while based on the same Lutheran confession as the Church of Sweden, it was still an independent agency challenging traditional church order.Footnote ⁴⁸ The Finnish pastors followed Sweden's religious development closely, sometimes with concern. In the 1890 Turku synod meeting, Pastor Troberg claimed that because Swedish lay preachers had been given too much power, they had started to envy clergymen and wished to become pastors themselves.Footnote ⁴⁹

The debates over lay preachers were caused in part by the different theological schools the pastors represented. By the 1890s, most leading Finnish theologians had become supporters of Beckianism, a biblically oriented theology originating from the Tübingen academic Johann Tobias Beck (1804–78). The evangelical movement also had supporters among the clergy. Doctrinal differences caused friction between the Beckians and the evangelicals, and the travelling preachers of the Lutheran Evangelical Association were often at the centre of arguments. For Beckians, the Bible was the only guiding star congregations needed; associations caused unnecessary trouble. Many evangelical pastors supported the Lutheran Evangelical Association's work and hence took a positive stance towards the free lay sermon (i.e. not restricted under the 1869 legislation).Footnote ⁵⁰ Some evangelicals, however, thought that more severe restrictions were in order.Footnote ⁵¹ The Lutheran Evangelical Association itself dismissed several preachers for their undisciplined behaviour. At the end of the nineteenth century, the association divided over doctrinal matters.Footnote ⁵²

Even though the General Synod found it hard to agree on anything related to lay preachers, it did manage to make one alteration to the law. In 1893, delegates decided that permission to preach could be withdrawn if needed.Footnote ⁵³ The idea was first initiated in the General Synod meeting of 1886 when Dean Lindelöf expressed his concern that licensed lay preachers were out of reach of proper disciplinary action. Since the preachers did not hold permanent office in the church, they could not be expelled like pastors. Furthermore, the vestries’ control over visiting preachers was not exerted over visiting pastors or licensed lay preachers.Footnote ⁵⁴ The change was ratified in 1895,Footnote ⁵⁵ but the first preacher had lost his licence five years earlier. Constantin Boije (1854–1934), a former missionary student and a member of an old noble family, had obtained permission to preach in 1875 in the diocese of Porvoo. He soon became known for his connections to the free churches, but it was not until Boije became head of the Finnish Salvation Army in 1890 that the Lutheran Church decided to cut ties with him.Footnote ⁵⁶

Taking away a licensed lay preacher's right to speak in churches was the ultimate disciplinary sanction. By 1923, only seven preachers had had their permission revoked. However, the decision was not always irreversible. In 1912, the chapter of Kuopio removed permission to preach from the carpenter Joel Halonen because of his connection with the Jehovah's Witnesses. In 1921, Halonen approached the chapter again and asked to have his permission restored. He had now become the head of a boys’ workshop in the city of Kuopio, which was run by a local home mission association. The chapter was not unanimous in its decision, but it finally decided to restore Halonen's permission to preach.Footnote ⁵⁷ Halonen had managed to prove that he was, after all, loyal to the Lutheran Church, and he had found a way to be useful in Christian work.

Licensed Lay Preachers at Work

In addition to the ideals expressed by the Church Law, there was also good practical reason for the church to be interested in lay preachers. Finland had suffered from a recurrent lack of theology students since the beginning of the nineteenth century. The first big drop came in the 1860s, the second at the beginning of the twentieth century and the third in the 1920s. According to the church historian Eino Murtorinne, the ministry became less appealing as modernization of society proceeded. Young upper-class men now had more potential career options. There was also a financial aspect, since only a limited number of well-paid pastoral offices existed.Footnote ⁵⁸

In a land with a growing population, the low number of pastors became a major challenge for the church. In 1912, it was estimated that there were about 3,639 parishioners per pastor, and in the metropolitan region of Helsinki some pastors had congregations of more than ten thousand people.Footnote ⁵⁹ This was not uncommon in the wider European context. Anthony Steinhoff, who has studied urban religious culture in Germany, notes that in Hamburg and Berlin, for example, there were about eight thousand people per pastor at the beginning of the twentieth century.Footnote ⁶⁰ In Finland, the under-developed road network posed another problem. Especially in large and remote parishes, pastors struggled to fulfil their duties; one factor in this was the tendency of pastors to stay in office until they were very old or died. Some congregations were even left without a permanent pastor. Especially in the northern diocese, finding clergy to serve long-term was often difficult.Footnote ⁶¹ The lack of pastors is evident in the numerous applications for permission to preach. Applicants mentioned the situation when describing their motives, and pastors asked for lay assistance in their recommendation letters. In 1894, Chaplain Lilius and Pastor Kiljander tried to persuade the chapter of Porvoo to give teacher Albin Suhonen permission to preach: ‘In Räihäranta village, which is located on the crossroads of Antrea, Räisälä, Muola and Valkjärvi parishes, a talented preacher would be necessary, and since we are already elderly men, it would be good for us as well to have some help at hand, if needed.’Footnote ⁶²

The annual reports written by local pastors differ in detail, but when those from all the dioceses are combined, they give a good general idea of what the work of a licensed lay preacher entailed.Footnote ⁶³ Local circumstances and personal relationships with pastors determined how much responsibility and freedom the individual preacher had. According to the reports, licensed lay preachers would most often organize prayer meetings and catechism and Bible classes, conduct Sunday schools, assist at confirmations and help with the teaching in ambulatory schools.Footnote ⁶⁴ Some offered pastoral care to the sick and helped pastors with administration. The recommendation letters reveal that many applicants were already familiar with such tasks. Interestingly, some pastors had even allowed lay men to preach occasionally and to lead non-sacramental services in church, although the Church Law of 1869 permitted only pastors and licensed lay preachers to officiate.Footnote ⁶⁵ Shortage of clerical personnel seems to have been the main reason behind such decisions. For instance, according to Pastor Skogström's recommendation letter, teacher David Hämäläinen had held services in the chapel of Konginkangas because the chapel did not have its own pastor. Hämäläinen worked in Konginkangas from 1870 to 1871 but did not apply for permission to preach until 1873.Footnote ⁶⁶

The case of David Hämäläinen is not unique. In some remote chapelries like Konginkangas, it was common for teachers to officiate at services in the local church.Footnote ⁶⁷ These so-called teacher-preachers often became long-lasting substitutes for pastors. One prerequisite for obtaining a post like this was to become a licensed lay preacher. Some applicants were open about their motives and their wish to become qualified as teacher-preachers.Footnote ⁶⁸ Since the application process could take months or even years, some men worked as teacher-preachers for a long time before securing official recognition.Footnote ⁶⁹ Licensed lay preachers from other occupational groups also held services, but not, to my knowledge, before passing the preachers’ examinations.

During the period studied here, calls for better clerical surveillance of lay preachers continued. Nevertheless, at the end of the nineteenth century the emphasis shifted: instead of finding ways to restrict lay preachers, there were now more attempts to organize lay agency and to harness it as part of the church's regular activity. One reason for this change of heart was the Act regarding Dissenters, which in 1889 allowed people to leave the Lutheran Church and join another Protestant community. The Act clarified the dissenters’ position, but it did not completely alleviate the tensions between them and the church.Footnote ⁷⁰ The church also began to focus increasingly on home missionary work aimed at awakening people. Before the Freedom of Religion Act in 1923, all Finns had to belong to a religious community. For the great majority, this was the Lutheran Church. The Orthodox community was the largest religious minority, comprising just 1.7 per cent of the population in 1900.Footnote ⁷¹ However, the Lutheran Church was well aware that a growing number of its members were only nominal Christians.

The church was especially concerned about the working classes. The labour movement's cause had some support and understanding among the clergy, but the fear of socialism was nourished by the statements of leading socialists.Footnote ⁷² Lay agency was needed more than ever in the battle against secularization. In the General Synod meeting of 1908, Dean Bergroth supported a proposition which aimed at strengthening home mission through association work. Bergroth stated that the clergy needed ‘the help of laymen, who have been enlightened by God's word, especially during these times, when God-deniers, the apostles of unbelief so diligently roam around countries and continents, spreading their destructive ideas’.Footnote ⁷³ The spirit of the era had also encouraged some applicants to take action. In his application letter to the Turku chapter, written in 1913, teacher Olavi Mäkinen expressed his willingness to fight ‘the atheist and materialistic worldviews that are trying to plant their seeds in our beloved church's spiritual field’.Footnote ⁷⁴

Home mission also includes charitable care, in which the emphasis is on caring for people's material and social needs. Before the end of the nineteenth century, Finnish home missions were largely organized by the voluntary sector.Footnote ⁷⁵ The early twentieth century saw a rise in the number of Christian associations.Footnote ⁷⁶ An increasing number of applicants for permission to preach found work in Christian associations instead of local congregations. Men working for the Finnish Missionary Society, the Finnish Seamen's Mission, the Finnish Sunday School Association and a myriad of regional home mission associations submitted applications. The largest individual group among these applicants were the preachers of the Lutheran Evangelical Association. By demanding, or at least encouraging, their employees to apply for official permission to preach, associations could show their support for, and loyalty to, the Lutheran Church. Many of these associations employed pastors or were otherwise closely connected to the church, but they were nonetheless independent organizations. Becoming a licensed lay preacher could also be beneficial to one's career. For example, when Juho Alarik Varski approached the Turku chapter in 1923, he was working as a temporary travelling preacher for the Finnish Mission Society. The terms of Varski's permanent employment required him to apply for permission to preach.Footnote ⁷⁷

Licensed lay preachers could never replace the pastors completely. The Church Law of 1869 stated that laymen could only administer the sacraments (baptism and holy communion) in an emergency.Footnote ⁷⁸ However, in 1907 the Turku synod meeting discussed the possibility that selected licensed lay preachers be given the temporary right to baptize children, ‘bless’ (i.e. bury) the dead and conduct communion services. The idea came from the archdiocese's chapter. Assessor Björklund emphasized that such a proposition would never have been made in ‘regular circumstances’, but the prolonged lack of pastors had forced the chapter to venture into uncharted waters.Footnote ⁷⁹ In fact, there was already a precedent where the boundaries between laity and clergy had been stretched. Teacher Pietari Toikka had received his permission to preach in 1906, in the archdiocese of Turku. A year later, the congregation of Ikaalinen chose him to work as an additional pastor for a fixed term of five years. The parishioners and the local clergy had been asking the Turku diocesan chapter to provide them with another pastor, but due to the lack of clergy, it was unable to fulfil their needs. Toikka was allowed to baptize children and occasionally to administer holy communion to the sick, but he did not fulfil other ministerial duties.Footnote ⁸⁰

After a long debate, the Turku synod decided to send a proposal to the General Synod meeting of 1908, requesting that selected licensed lay preachers be allowed, in some circumstances, to administer the sacraments and bury the dead. Many delegates found the proposition unfair to ordained pastors, who had spent years at university to achieve their current positions. They also felt that blurring the boundaries between laity and clergy might confuse people and weaken the church from within. Others countered that the proposition's purpose was to help pastors and to lessen their workload, not to question the authority of the clergy or the church. Eventually, the General Synod decided to reject the proposal, but the same basic request was presented in slightly different forms in the General Synod meetings of 1913, 1918 and 1923. Finally, delegates agreed that teachers who had permission to preach and who were working on some of the more remote islands in the Gulf of Finland could administer the sacraments.Footnote ⁸¹ As in Toikka's case, the decision was reached because of local needs and circumstances.

Who is an Acceptable Preacher?

Men from all layers of society submitted their applications in the hope of becoming licensed lay preachers. The biggest professional group, comprising approximately 40 per cent of all the applicants, were teachers. There were also several ambulatory school teachers, who offered basic education for small children and were usually paid by the congregation. Sextons, cantors and organists were also common applicants. Applications were made by numerous men who earned a living from manual labour: farmers, carpenters, shoemakers, tanners, tailors, factory workers and mechanics, to name but a few, approached their local chapters. All in all, nearly sixty different professions are represented in the applications for permission to preach.

Even though chapters might have preferred some applicants over others, permission was granted to all kinds of men. Only the Savonlinna chapter decided to establish any professional or education-related criteria for aspiring preachers. In 1900, the eastern chapter decided that all men applying for permission to preach had to present a graduation certificate from an upper secondary school, teacher seminar, deacon institute or missionary school.Footnote ⁸² A number of pastors expressed doubts about letting uneducated men speak in church. Preaching at a public prayer meeting was thought to be completely different from preaching from a pulpit, which symbolized the church's authority. Again, not all clergymen shared this view. Some pastors claimed that parishioners might find lay preachers more approachable than pastors, since they could relate to the simple and straightforward language lay preachers usually used.Footnote ⁸³ There might have been some truth in this notion. From the first half of the nineteenth century, the Church of England had also used lay agents in its work in urban congregations. Bible women and Scripture readers visited the sick, dispensed charity and persuaded people to attend church. According to Hugh McLeod, such work often proved more fruitful than the interaction between the clergy and their working-class parishioners.Footnote ⁸⁴

By the turn of the century, even the most hesitant clergymen openly acknowledged that the Lutheran Church needed the assistance of active laypeople. It was widely agreed that laypeople were well suited to social and educational work with children and young people. Youth work was much needed, because after finishing confirmation school around the age of fifteen, there were no firm ties between young people and the church.Footnote ⁸⁵ They were rarely eager to attend service, and the church could not provide as much for them as could Christian youth associations. Laity could also support God's work in the domestic sphere. When it came to public preaching, however, opinions varied. At the end of the nineteenth century, the debate about lay preachers’ education and the church's home missionary ambitions led to the idea of special schools for lay preachers. The idea that one could study to become a professional lay preacher and hold a long-term post in the institutional church was met with both enthusiasm and suspicion. Some shunned the idea that a lay preacher could hold office like a pastor, even if it was temporary. It was also feared that lay preacher schools might attract people who were more interested in making a living than serving God.Footnote ⁸⁶

A leading contributor to the debate about schools for lay preachers was Dean Otto Aarnisalo. The efforts of Aarnisalo and like-minded pastors bore fruit in 1901, when the Missionary Society started training preachers exclusively for the home missionary field. Aarnisalo was also the head of the Finnish Home Mission Society, which ran the country's only training institution for deacons, also founded in 1901.Footnote ⁸⁷ Aarnisalo wanted to start preparing two kinds of deacons: some would focus on Christian social work, while others would become professional lay preachers, who could also substitute temporarily for pastors. In 1910, the diaconal institute started to offer courses for lay preachers. Both the home mission students of the missionary school and those following the diaconal institute's courses for preachers had to apply for the church's permission to preach at the end of their studies. Despite high hopes, the schools’ results were modest. Between 1901 and 1911, only ten home missionaries graduated from the Missionary Society's school, and the majority of them remained in the society's service. Due to financial difficulties, the diaconal institute had to wind up the preachers’ courses after just five years.Footnote ⁸⁸

Licensed lay preachers had constantly to balance being innovative and submissive. When reading the annual reports about them, it soon becomes clear what kind of qualities pastors appreciated in their lay assistants. The ideal preacher was hard-working, humble, obedient and not seeking personal glory. Applicants for permission to preach seemed to understand the kind of personality traits favoured by the chapters. ‘I would humbly like to assure you that I have not made my plea out of any personal ambition’, sexton Juho Ristreimari wrote to the Savonlinna chapter in 1910.Footnote ⁸⁹ Teacher Jaakko Kolanen explained to the Turku chapter in 1872 that he did not lightly seek permission to preach. Should they decide to grant it, Kolanen understood that he would be accountable not only to the chapter but ‘to God's righteous judgement on the last day’.Footnote ⁹⁰