TA 3/2022 (127. vuosikerta)

The Bookseller Pietari Joosef Väänänen and His Circles as Promoters of a Pietistic Reading Culture in the Savo-Karelian Province — Pietari Joosef Väänänen (1784–1846) was a pie­tist layman who founded Finland’s first inland bookstore, at Kuopio, in 1819. The article brings together Väänänen’s lifework as a bookseller and his endeavours as a promoter of a pietistic reading culture in collaboration with international evangelical and Moravian circles. The essential nodes in Väänänen’s network were his partner Henrik Renqvist and reverend John Paterson, a commissioner of the British and Foreign Bible Society. Väänänen and his circles circulated evangelical tracts in Finland at the grassroots level. Through Paterson, descriptions of Väänänen’s efforts spread as far as America and were read as part of the international evangelical awakening.

A Discussion on the Definition of the Role of the Deacon in the Finnish Orthodox Church in the 1920s and 1930s — In newly independent Finland, the national Orthodox Church was recognized by the state in 1918, its status affirmed by decree. Therein, the duties of a deacon were defined as assistance to the priest in worship, preaching, charity work, and administration. Although the Orthodox Church had seen charitable work and preaching as part of the deacon’s original ministry in the early church, the deacon’s role remained predominantly liturgical in the early 20th century: they worked as cantors and assisted priests in the liturgy. In the 1920s and 1930s, there were efforts to extend the deacon’s duties to include charitable work, following the example of the Lutheran church, but they never came to fruition.