Lutheran Theology

I have dealt with the impact of the Enlightenment philosophy, but now it is time to ask: What was the theological reason for the transition from rich and flourishing Baroque music culture to simple and solemn practice? And how was this change seen in Finland and Ingria? I will next present the theological trends that had an impact on liturgy and congregational singing in Finland and Ingria. At the beginning of each chapter, I briefly present the trend in question, and then I discuss its impact in Finland and Ingria. I approach the topic by referring to earlier related studies but also by analysing texts of Professor of Practical Theology and later Bishop of Kuo-pio (see Map 5) and Savonlinna (see Map 6), Otto Immanuel Colliander, who often discussed questions about congregational singing, hymnology and liturgy in the late nineteenth century, and also published a four-part chorale book with Richard Faltin.

It is necessary to start this review from the end of the sixteenth century. The reason for this is that Lutheran Orthodoxy formed around this time but was still influen-tial in the nineteenth century, as theologically represented in the Handbook (1693) and Hymnal (1701), still in use in early-nineteenth-century Finland and Ingria. Ac-cording to Colliander (1877, 181), in the Reformation era, the Lutheran liturgy was celebrated in its fresh life and its rich diversity. Unfortunately, it did not remain un-touched for long. Through the ‘dead faith of Lutheran Orthodoxy,’ the inner life of the Church grew more rigid, leaving little life-giving essence in these liturgical forms.

They lapsed, claimed Colliander, ‘into empty shells and a Catholic opus operatum⁴⁰.’

But Rationalism and Pietism seemed to have had an even worse impact on the litur-gy in Colliander’s eyes.

The period following the deaths of Martin Luther in 1546 and Philipp Melanch-thon (1497–1560) in 1560 was characterised by theological controversies which were resolved in an authoritative Lutheran statement of faith, the 1577 Formula of Concord (Formula concordiae). This reconsolidation of theology started an era called

40 Colliander refers to Catholic doctrine, according to which the sacraments derive their efficacy ex opera operato, ‘from the work performed,’ i.e. regardless of the pastor or recipient, whereas Lutherans have stressed the significance of personal faith. Colliander himself underlined personal faith much more strongly than mainstream Lutheran theology in his own time or later (Murtorinne 1986, 171).

Lutheran Orthodoxy; it lasted until the Age of Enlightenment in the eighteenth century. To put it briefly, characteristic to this sentiment were the definition and consolidation of the correct Lutheran doctrine, the verbal dictation theory as well as the firm confidence that the doctrine expressed in Lutheran recognition is biblical and contains the truth of Christianity. This kind of theology naturally also had an impact on hymnody and liturgy (for more information about Lutheran Orthodoxy, see e.g. Baur 2010).

Oulu

Vaasa

Turku

Jyväskylä

Kuopio

Porvoo

Helsinki

Viipuri

Diocese of Turku

Diocese of Kuopio

Diocese of Porvoo

Map 5. The dioceses of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, 1851–1897.

In the era of Lutheran Orthodoxy, congregations maintained the full rituals in their normal Divine Services, as suggested by Luther. Holy Communion was celebrat-ed on each Sunday and festival. Divine Services were conductcelebrat-ed in the vernacular, but in many Lutheran countries, Latin was also present. Even though Colliander claimed that liturgy lapsed ‘into empty shells,’ church music flourished, and this era is considered as a ‘golden age’ of Lutheran hymnody. From a musical point of view, the liturgy was in fact richer than it was to become, in the nineteenth century (see further e.g. Blume 1975 [1964], 186–250).

Oulu

Vaasa

Turku

Jyväskylä

Kuopio

Savonlinna

Porvoo Helsinki

Viipuri Diocese

of Turku

Diocese of Porvoo

Diocese of Savonlinna Diocese

of Kuopio

Map 6. The dioceses of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, 1897–1923.

Neology and Rationalism

In the eighteenth century, the European Enlightenment, adopting the sentiments of the modern Scientific Revolution, challenged many traditional Christian assump-tions but also gradually influenced the Protestant theology. In contrast to Lutheran Orthodoxy’s dogmatic and theoretical character, Lutheran theologians started to defend the notion of the harmony between reason and revelation as well as un-derlining the pragmatic nature of Christianity. The chief sentiment of this kind of Enlightenment theology, known as Neology, dominated Lutheranism in the second half of the eighteenth century, especially in Germany. It also dominated Lutheran theology in Finland by the end of the 1820s, mostly through the most influential Finnish theologian and the first archbishop of Finland, Jakob Tengström (1755–

1832; Murtorinne 1986, 11–16).

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, influenced by Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), the European Enlightenment theology split into two opposite wings, the more liberal Rationalism and the more conservative Supranaturalism, which turned back towards Lutheran Orthodoxy (Murtorinne 1986, 13–14). In this way, Lutheranism mirrored developments in other Protestant demoninations as well as Roman Catholicism. Regardless of denominational differences, however, the real division was increasingly between those who embraced the new thoughts of the Enlightenment and those who rejected them.

The Enlightenment also produced a change in the traditional liturgy and the Lu-theran hymn. The liturgical forms had been disintegrating since the time of the Reformation, but now Pietism, Neology and Rationalism, diminished both the ap-preciation for and amount of music. According to rationalistic thought, the goal of the liturgy was to be determined by the very purpose of the church itself, which was to help its members reach the highest level of morality and satisfaction consistent with contemporary religious and moral circumstances and the needs of the commu-nity (Petkūnas 2013, 67–68). From then on, the most important part of the Divine Service was the sermon and the service neglected liturgical formulas and merely preserved their remnants. From the sung parts, only the Kyrie and Gloria as well as some isolated hymns and the Magnificat of the Vespers remained. The popularity that the Lutheran hymn had enjoyed during the era of Lutheran Orthodoxy was not completely lost, but because the official German hymnals restricted themselves only to hymns from the Reformation era, many older hymns were left out and forgotten

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the old Swedish 1693 Handbook was still in use both in Sweden, to which Finland still belonged, and Ingria. The discus-sion about renewing the Handbook and the Hymnal started in Sweden at the end of the 1780s. When traveling around Europe, King Gustav III (r. 1771–1792) had seen the liturgical richness of both the Catholic and Anglican Mass and thereby embraced a new sense of aesthetics as well as a general cultural perspective to the liturgy. At the same time the Swedish clergy still mostly remained satisfied with their conservative liturgy. In fact, Jakob Tengström was the first to take an official initia-tive of renewal of the Handbook in 1786, but his proposal was not even discussed at the clerical estate in the Diet. The discussion took place three years later in the Diet when the King wanted to celebrate the two-hundredth anniversary of the 1593 Uppsala Synod by also making changes to the Divine Service. In May 1792 – six weeks after the murder of King Gustav III – the Privy Council decided that dioc-esan chapters had to make proposals for changes needed in the Handbook (Mar-tling 1992, 81–84). Consequently, there were different kinds of proposals, based on which the Handbook Committee, founded in 1793, finally made the final proposal in 1799. However, a new king, Gustav IV Adolf (r. 1792–1809), did not favour it and declared that he would do nothing to promote the renewal of the Mass (ibid., 86–87). Despite that, the process restarted in 1809, but by that time, Finland was no longer part of the Swedish Kingdom. Nevertheless, the Finns observed the project;

at least Jakob Tengström did it with great interest because the new Swedish Hand-book, published in 1811, was a fulfilment of his Neological thoughts about liturgy.

The 1811 Swedish Handbook was published in 1817 in Finnish⁴¹ for Finnish-speaking parishes in Sweden. In the same year, there was a discussion at the Clergy Conference in Porvoo about whether it would have been allowed to use it also in Finland. The proposal was dismissed, but the Handbook nonetheless spread in Finland because many pastors preferred both its Enlightenment theology and renewed language (Rosenqvist 1935, 417). From the point of view of singing, there was only one difference in comparison with the 1693 Handbook: the opening hymn was added.

41 Käsi-Kirja, josa säätään, kuinga Jumalan-Palwelus Ruotsin Seurakunnisa toimitettaman pitää. Ylitsekatsottu, Parattu ja Lisättyc, niin myös Kuning. Maj:tin Armolisella suostumisella Waldakunnan Säädyiltä noudattamisexi otettu Herrainpäiwänä Stockholmisa Wuonna 1809.

Rationalism, on the other hand, directly affected Old Finland through a new agen-da. Even though Finland became a part of Russia in 1809, the south-eastern part of Finland in fact already belonged to the Russian Empire. Sweden lost this area called Old Finland⁴² (see Map 7) to Russia in the 1720s and 1740s. In the eighteenth century, although the uppermost administration of the Lutheran parishes of Old Finland was Russian, located in Saint Petersburg, they were allowed to have a similar congregational life with the Lutheran Church of Finland, and the vast majority of pastors were still educated at the Porvoo Grammar School⁴³ and the Royal Academy of Turku. There were two consistories, Viipuri and Hamina, led by the local vicars.

42 Vanha Suomi in Finnish, Gamla Finland in Swedish and Старая Финляндия in Russian.

43 Porvoon lukio in Finnish, Borgå gymnasium in Swedish.

Map 7. Old Finland, i.e. the areas Sweden lost to Russia in 1721 and 1743, and that were joined to the Grand Duchy of Finland in 1812. There were two consistorial districts, Viipuri and Hamina.

Viipuri

St. Petersburg Hamina

Consistorial District of Hamina

Consistorial District of Viipuri

Liturgical life had remained similar, and the 1693 Swedish Handbook was also still in use in Old Finland (Halila 1949, 100– 101; Laasonen 1991, 409–412, 415). Accord-ing to Erkki Kansanaho (1986, 48), the people of Old Finland primarily considered themselves Finns, even though the border separated them from the rest of Finland for decades. Alongside language and history, the central explanation for this was the Lutheran Church. This is perhaps why the Russians considered the population of Old Finland disloyal and blamed the Church and clergy for it.

To unify all of Lutherans in the Empire under a single liturgy, a publication called the Imperial Liturgical Directives⁴⁴ was published in Russia in 1805. A Rationalistic point of view was clearly expressed in the introduction:

The Protestant Church has no other purpose than to assist its members in achieving the highest human determination in morality and contentment, with constant regard to the existing religious and moral circumstances and needs of the parishes. And it recognises no other expedient means for this than the right use of the Bible and reasoning.⁴⁵ (Imperial Liturgical Direc-tives 1805, 2. Transl. by the author.)

According to the Liturgical Directives, the Holy Communion was reserved only for special occasions (Petkūnas 2013, 64). From a musical point of view, this meant that in comparison with the 1693 Handbook, both singing hymns and liturgical melodies decreased because the whole Communion Mass with all of its sung parts was left out when there was no Lord’s Supper.

The aim of the Liturgical Directives was to unify the Lutheran liturgy in the Russian Empire, but this aim was not achieved. The biggest reason for this was the small number of instructions for officiating the liturgy; for example, no exact words but only formulas were given for prayers. Consequently, many pastors considered the

44 Seiner Kaiserlichen Majestät allerhöchst bestätigte allgemeine liturgische Verordnung für die evangelisch-lutheri-schen Gemeinden im Russievangelisch-lutheri-schen Reiche.

45 ‘Die protestantische Kirche hat keinen andern Zweck, als ihren Mitgliedern zur Erreichung der ganzen höchsten Menschenbestimmung in Sittlichkeit und Zufriedenheit behülflich zu seyn, mit steter Hinsicht auf die jedesmaligen religiösen und moralischen Umstände und Bedürfnisse der Gemeinden. Und sie erkennet dazu keine andere Mittel für zweckmäßig, als den rechten Gebrauch der Bibel und Vernunft.’

Liturgical Directives a regulatory document, a loose frame into which they could place all of the parts of the liturgy in a form with which they were already familiar (Kansanaho 1956, 147; Petkūnas 2013, 57, 68–69). In Old Finland, both the Viipuri and Hamina Consistories received copies of the new liturgy to be distributed to the parishes. In addition, they were required to translate it into Finnish and to give instructions by following the Rationalistic spirit of the liturgy for using it. In Viipuri Consistorial District, the were efforts to get a new agenda by, for instance, the Vicar of Rautu, Jakob Åkerstedt (1757–1827), but they went nowhere (Kansanaho 1956, 147–148 and footnote 26).

The only exception was the Hamina Consistory, which applied the College of Jus-tice in Saint Petersburg for an exemption from these new regulations in the Litur-gical Directives because conservative and ordinary folk would be offended by the new Rationalist theology. The Consistory received the response that the Liturgical Directives must be implemented without further delay. Nevertheless, they did not translate the book as such into Finnish and Swedish but published in 1808 a brief agenda ⁴⁶that attempted to build a proper service according to the general outlines of the Divine Service given in the Liturgical Directives. Even though it differed from the Liturgical Directives in some ways, the service was to a large degree liturgi-cally impoverished in comparison with the Swedish 1693 Handbook. The result was that in the Hamina Consistorial District, pastors were forced to perform the liturgy strongly influenced by Rationalism, whereas in Ingria and the Viipuri Consistorial District, pastors were allowed to interpret the new regulations as they saw fit; i.e. by using the 1693 Handbook and the 1805 Imperial Liturgical Directives side by side (Kansanaho 1956, 147–148; Petkūnas 2013, 70–72). Besides the Hamina Consisto-rial District, the 1808 Hamina Agenda was also used in Parikkala parish, which was under the authority of Viipuri Consistory because Vicar Henrik Fenander (1763–

1831) was thrilled about it. In 1812 when Old Finland was joined to the Grand Duchy of Finland, bishop of Porvoo Magnus Jacob Alopaeus instructed parishes to go back to using the 1693 Swedish Handbook (Kansanaho 1956, 149–150).

46 Käsi-Kirja jossa Käsitetty on Kuinga Jumalan-palwelus Kristillisten Seremoniain ja menoin kansa, Frie-drichshaminan Hippakunnan Ruotsin ja Suomen Seurakunnissa pidettämän ja toimitettaman pitää. Sen kaikkein korkeimmast wahwistetun, Lutheruxen opin Seurakunnille Wenäjän Waldakunnassa ulosannetun Liturgin asetux-en jälkeasetux-en ojettu Wuonna 1806.

In other parts of Finland, Rationalistic thought took root more slowly. In 1817, committees were set up to make proposals for a new agenda, hymnal, church law and catechism. As already mentioned, Archbishop Jakob Tengström, the chair of these committees, was influenced by Neology (Murtorinne 1992, 12–13, 44). How-ever, during the renewal work, neo-Lutheran thought arrived in Finland from Ger-many, in reaction against Neology (ibid., 47–48). Together with the influence of Pietistic movements, these thoughts were the reason why the process of publishing new books was postponed until the end of the century.

In Sweden, J.C.F. Hæffner and Olof Åhlström’s 1799 collection of liturgical melo-dies had to be renewed according to the 1811 rationalistic-minded Handbook. For some reason, the men did not do it together this time but rather each published their own versions, Hæffner in 1817 and Åhlström in 1818. Both of these collections followed the 1799 collection and included only one series of liturgical melodies. In addition, only the Sanctus had alternative melodies. Hæffner harmonised the melo-dies, which no longer resembled the earlier published Gregorian-based melomelo-dies, for four-part choral singing or organ accompaniment. There was accompaniment even in the liturgist’s sung parts in Hæffner’s 1817 edition. These solutions were based on Central European rationalistic insights, according to which four-part choral singing and devout solemnity were the best tools for raising the congregation’s spiritual life (Vapaavuori 1994, 24–25). Hæffner’s liturgical style had a huge impact on liturgical singing in Finland and to a certain extent also in Ingria (see Chapter 4).

In addition, in the spirit of the Enlightenment, a new Swedish Hymnal was pub-lished in 1819. It did not affect congregational singing in Finland as much as Hæff-ner’s liturgical work. There was a discussion, however, about whether or not the Swedish Hymnal should have been taken into use in Swedish-speaking parishes in Finland as well. The archbishop with his Rationalist ideas naturally supported the idea, but it was nevertheless dismissed (Hallio 1928, 20–22; Niemi 1954, 16–18, 35–37). According to the Vicar of Saint Catherine’s Swedish parish in Saint Peters-burg, Herman Kajanus (1852–1913), they took into use a new edition in 1834 which included both the 1819 Swedish Hymnal, albeit slightly modified by his predecessor Eric Gustaf Ehrström, and some parts of the 1832 Imperial Agenda (Kajanus 1980 [s.a.], 23–24). According to a pseudonymous Furumo⁴⁷ in Borgå Tidning (29 May 1850), both the new Swedish Hymnal and the Handbook were in use in the

Swed-47 According to Hilja Niemi (1954, 36, footnote 82), the pseudonym Furumo was used by Pastor Johan Granbom.

ish-speaking parishes in Russia; it is possible, however, that he had seen Ehrström’s version of the Hymnal and mistakenly thought that the Agenda also came from Sweden since the Hymnal was from there.

Pietism and Spiritual Movements

Pietism was an influential religious reform movement that began among the Ger-man Lutherans in the latter half of the seventeenth century. As a phenomenon of personal religious renewal, it emphasised personal faith against doctrine and theol-ogy and later became concerned with social and educational matters. One of the most remarkable impacts of Pietism was a new emphasis on the role of the laity in the church (Wallmann 1997 [1990], 11). Pietism was divided into many different alignments; there is no need to introduce the whole multiplicity of different groups;

it will suffice to outline the starting points and main trends: Halle Pietism and the Bohemian Brethren.

During the period of the Lutheran Orthodoxy, some Lutheran theologians start-ed to argue that Christianity was not so much a system of doctrine as a guide for practical Christian living. The most well-known among them was Johann Arndt (1555–1621), whose writings, mainly of a mystical and devotional kind, were very popular in seventeenth-century Lutheran Europe (Wallmann 1997 [1990], 20–21).

Arndt’s chief work, Wahres Christentum (True Christianity; four books, published in 1605–1609) was a guide to the meditative and devotional life. The central feature of the book was the mystical union between the believer and Christ. Arndt endeav-oured to shift Lutheran theology’s strict focus on Christ’s death for His people to the life of Christ within His people. Arndt was highly respected both among Protestants and Catholics, but especially among German Pietists (ibid., 23, 26–32). The founder of Pietism, Pastor Philipp Jakob Spener (1635–1705) from Frankfurt repeatedly called attention to Arndt and his books (ibid., 53–55).

The year 1675 has often been considered a starting point for Pietism. In that year, Spener published his book Pia desideria (Pious Desires), in which he called for greater commitment to Christian living and the fundamental reform of theological educa-tion. Focusing on personal transformation through spiritual rebirth and renewal as well as the piety of the individual, the movement generated ‘little churches within

The year 1675 has often been considered a starting point for Pietism. In that year, Spener published his book Pia desideria (Pious Desires), in which he called for greater commitment to Christian living and the fundamental reform of theological educa-tion. Focusing on personal transformation through spiritual rebirth and renewal as well as the piety of the individual, the movement generated ‘little churches within

In document The Standardisation of Lutheran Congregational Singing and Liturgical Melodies in Nineteenth-Century Finland and Ingria (sivua 71-94)