Catholic Church in Finland

The parish of Helsinki was founded in 1856, possibly due to the influence of the Governor General Friedrich Wilhelm von Berg's Italian wife, Leopoldina Cicogna Mozzoni (1786 – Warsaw 17 February 1874).

After Finland's independence and the departure of Russian military forces, which had included many Poles and Lithuanians, the Catholic Church lost most of its members.

Finland established diplomatic relations with the Holy See in 1942[6] and Pope Pius XII donated a significant sum of money to Finnish war orphans.

One of these, the Neocatechumenal Way has established two Redemptoris Mater seminaries in Finland and maintains a presence both in Helsinki and in other towns, most notably Oulu.

There is a Catholic Church retreat and education centre named Stella Maris in Lohja.

[7] There is a high demand for establishing a new parish in Northern Finland at Rovaniemi which is a major tourist destination in Lapland.

The Dominican friars run a house in central Helsinki, home to a large library specializing in Christian studies and ecumenism named Studium Catholicum [fi].

[11] The National Board of Antiquities eventually chose to place the relics in the Cathedral of Saint Henry in Helsinki.

The languages beyond Finnish in which the Mass is celebrated include Swedish, English, Polish, Vietnamese, Tagalog, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Malayalam, Tamil and Hungarian.