Saints and Sacrifice in 17Th Century Lutheran Finland1

CHAPTER 3 Protestantism, Modernity and the Power of Penetration: Saints and Sacrifice in 17th Century Lutheran Finland1

Raisa Maria Toivo

3.1 Introduction

In 1670 the dean2 of Paltamo, in North-Eastern Finland, wrote a visitation record in which he lamented the parishioners celebrating the rituals of “Olavi’s lambs, Kekri’s Lambs, Catharina’s Toast, Tapani’s toasts, Ukko’s Toast, etc.”3 These were, as the Vicar claimed, the rituals that the parishioners’ forefathers had celebrated: outdated, Catholic and Pagan, not proper Lutheran festivals. Although the rituals described in these cases were condemned by Mikael Agricola in the mid-16th century, if not earlier, in practice they had not been punishable offences, nor had these customs met with serious opposition from the parish clergy before the mid-17th century. Most of the saints’ days had been abandoned from the church calendar of Holy days only in 1571, with the introduction of the Lutheran liturgical order, and the days of commemoration were still part of the calendar without Holy celebrations.4 The Reformation period reduced the number of official holy days consid- erably from the fifty or sixty of the Late Middle Ages (in addition to regular Sundays) held in various parts of western Christendom, including most Catholic areas. In Sweden, to which Finland at the time belonged, this process was rather slow. It took until 1571, when a new church order abolished a number of saint’s Days and other holy days, so that the number (outside regular Sundays) dropped to 32. Not only had this change come late in Sweden, but

1 Earlier versions of some parts of this chapter have been published in Raisa Maria Toivo: Faith and Magic in Early Modern Finland (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). This work has been funded by Academy of Finland project no. 285358. 2 Rovasti. 3 County Archives in Joensuu, IICd1, item 14. (6.3.1670). Olavi is the Finnish version of Olaf. 4 Jyrki Knuutila, “Liturgisen yhdenmukaistamisen toteutuminen Suomessa reformaatio- kaudella 1537–1614,” Suomen kirkkohistoriallisen seuran vuosikirja 77 (1987): 9–40. See also Ottfried Czaika, “Die Konfessionalisierung im Schwedischen Reich.” Suomen kirkkohistoriallisen seuran vuosikirja 97, (Helsinki: The Finnish Society of Church History, 2007), 73–79.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��7 | doi ��.��63/9789004328877_005 76 Toivo the reduction was small compared to most other Protestant areas, especially in Calvinist and Reformed areas. The process was also a slow and gradual one, opposed by many in different estates. Nor was the process wholly unambigu- ous. The 1571 order relinquished, among others, the popular saints Henrik, a Swedish bishop who was reputed to have accompanied the first Christian crusade to Finland, Olaf (Norwegian martyr king), Mary Magdalen, St. Lawrence, St. Catherine of Alexandria, St. Clement, St. Nicholas and St. Anna, as well as St. Erik (The Swedish king reputed to have organized the first crusade with Henrik) and the Swedish St. Birgitta. Of these, the days of Mary Magdalen and St. Lawrence were rehabilitated in 1575, but changed back into half work- days at the turn of the century by Charles IX, the king of Sweden in the early 17th century.5 The attitude of the 16th-century church leaders in Sweden and Finland towards the saints’ days was, evidently, not unanimous, and the measures taken did not send a strong message, at least to the parishioners. Some hundred and fifty years after the Reformation began in Finland, a campaign of educating and punishing the people to remove old superstitious customs began. As part of that campaign, celebration of “irregular holy days” received new attention and the celebrations were recorded in various church and episcopal visitations and secular court documents. In current Finnish historiography, the saint’s days’ rituals are usually presented as examples of a late Christianization and slow Reformation, with modern Lutheranism finally penetrating the popular sphere during a forceful campaign by the authorities in the late 17th century.6

5 Göran Malmstedt, In Defence of the Holy Days: The Peasantry’s Opposition to the Reduction of Holy Days in Early Modern Sweden. Cultural history 3.2 (2014): 105–106. Esko M. Laine, “Orastava Ortodoksia. Mikael Agricolan ja Ericus Erici Sorolaisen aika: kolme näkökul- maa reformaatioon ja ortodoksiaan,” in Reformaatio. Henkilökuvia ja tutkimussuuntia. Suomalaisen Teologisen Kirjallisuusseuran ja Suomen kirkkohistoriallisenseuran yhteisessä symposiumissa marraskuussa 2007 pidetyt esitelmät, (ed.) Joona Salminen. (Helsinki: Suomen Teologinen kirjallisuusseura ja Suomen kirkkohistoriallinen seura, 2008), 182. 6 E.g. Per Ingesman (ed.), The ‘long reformation’ in Nordic historical research. Report to be discussed at the 28th Congress of Nordic Historians, Joensuu 14–17 August 2014. http://refor- matoriskteologi.au.dk/fileadmin/Reformatorisk_Teologi/Joensuu_report__vs1_.pdf; Ingun Montgomery, The Institutionalisation of Lutheranism in Sweden and Finland. In: Ole Peter Grell (ed.), The Scandinavian Reformation From Evangelical Movement to Institutionalisation of Reform, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 144–178; Kauko Pirinen, Suomen kirkon historia 1. Keskiaika ja Uskonpuhdistuksen aika, (Helsinki: WSOY, 1991); Kouri, E. I. The Early Reformation in Sweden and Finland c. 1520–1560. In: Ole Peter Grell (ed.), The Scandinavian Reformation From Evangelical Movement to Institutionalisation of Reform, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 42–69; Riitta Laitinen, Church Furnishings