• Main Authors: A Minority, State Church, Liberal Democracy
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2000
• Subjects: karelia*; karelian
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.197.6316; http://www.essex.ac.uk/ecpr/events/jointsessions/paperarchive/copenhagen/ws22/ahonen.pdf

Abstract. – Finland is a unique member among those other countries that apply the “state church ” regime for in organising church-state relations. In Finland there are two national churches. There is the large Lutheran Church of Finland (LCF), and there is the small Orthodox Church of Finland (OCF). This paper focuses upon the latter of these. Finland has had a rather liberal church-state regime since the 1870s, and there has been further de-regulation lately. The recent deregulation has concerned only the LCF so far, although it is likely to expand to cover also the OCF. To save the small capacity of the OCF and for reasons of minority protection there may have been grounds to proceed more slowly in the de-regulation regarding that Church. Moreover, the OCF is subject to a certain amount of international regulation through its lien with the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. This lien positions the OCF in the East-West interface. The OCF is an established representative of pluralism in Finland. It has played a crucial role as a link between many of the post-World War Two Finnish and Finnish-Karelian refugees to the remaining Finland. It is also a community to attract some of the recent Russian