Awakening (Finnish religious movement)

Theologically, the Awakening emphasized the greatness of God, the sinfulness of man, and the insignificance of human efforts towards salvation (see monergism).

The festival, held in July, attracts around 30,000 visitors and remains the second largest annual religious event in Finland.

The Awakening brought with it a form of the conventicle known as the seurat which consists of singing of hymns as prayer interrupted with short speeches as commentary to the prevailing mood.

It is nowadays widely assumed that the roots of Herännäisyys lay in several 18th-century popular religious revival movements e.g. in Savo province.

Paavo Ruotsalainen represents a new kind of personality of the 19th-century, formed by the emerging reading habit in the countryside at a period when especially religious literature became available for wider audience.

His main achievement was the application of learning of devotional literature in support of religious life and delivering consoling spiritual advice on the basis of his experience.

Eventually the Evangelical revival led by Fredrik Gabriel Hedberg split from the movement and was organized separately.

He embraced modern means of communication by founding the periodical Hengellinen Kuukauslehti in 1888 and establishing the publishing company Herättäjä 1892.

According to a poll taken by Church Labor Unions in 2010, 48% of the Finnish Lutheran clergy recognized the influence of awakening in their thinking and 28% were associated with the movement (N=660).

However, its mission is to point of the significance of faith in the life of the individual and empower people to follow Christ.

Today, it is a moderate movement accepting the ordination of women as pastors and having a liberal attitude toward sexual minorities.

The second Finnish name of the movement, körttiläisyys, is said to derive from the adherents' typical black clothing with a characteristic körtti (Swedish: skört) i.e. a pleat in the back.

The Finnish author Juhani Aho grew up within the movement and it was the subject of many of his novels and short stories.

The Finnish composer Joonas Kokkonen produced the opera The Last Temptations, which portrayed the life of Paavo Ruotsalainen.

The opera was composed for the famous Finnish bass Martti Talvela, whose friend was Awakening movement lay preacher Aku Räty.

The former chair person (2010) of the society was a laywoman, Kaisa Rönkä, the first woman in Finland to act as the head of Finnish revival movements.

Herättäjä-Yhdistys publishes books and music, organizes confirmation classes in the homestead of Paavo Ruotsalainen — Aholansaari in Nilsiä, and continues publication of Henki Magazine and other periodicals.

The festival is organized on a moving basis in different towns in the original area of the movement and occasionally in larger cities.