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Finland Smaller Registered Churches
In the 1980s, there were more than two dozen other
registered
religions in Finland, but none of them enjoyed the legal
status
of the two state churches. The largest single group in the
second
half of the 1980s consisted of several Pentecostal
churches that
drew on the revivalist strains always present in the
Finnish
religious tradition. Pentecostal churches had a total
congregation of about 40,000, distributed in a number of
organizations. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day
Saints
(Mormons) had some success and had about 4,000 followers.
Roman
Catholics numbered about 4,000, distributed in 5 parishes
presided over by a bishop. Most of the score of priests
were
foreigners, and Roman Catholic Finns who desired
ordination had
to study abroad. So successful had the Protestant
Reformation
been in extirpating Roman Catholicism from Finland that
for more
than three centuries no Finn had become a Roman Catholic
priest
until one was ordained in Paris in 1903. The Jewish
community of
1,200 persons was located in southern urban areas. It was
so
small that it was having trouble sustaining itself and had
to
seek its rabbi abroad. Finland's tiny Muslim community
dated from
the nineteenth century and numbered about 900. As in other
Western countries, eastern religions and sects had
received some
attention in Finland in recent decades. The most
successful of
them was the Bahai Society of Finland with just over 300
followers.
Data as of December 1988
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