In Finland

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

 the first appearance of radical Pietism

Pietism

Pietism was a movement within Lutheranism, lasting from the late 17th century to the mid-18th century and later. It proved to be very influential throughout Protestantism and Anabaptism, inspiring not only Anglican priest John Wesley to begin the Methodist movement, but also Alexander Mack to...

 is personified by Lars Ulstadius (born in Ostrobothnia

Ostrobothnia (historical province)

Ostrobothnia, and , is a historical province of Finland to the west and north in Finland. It borders on Karelia, Savonia, Tavastia and Satakunda in the south, and on Västerbotten in Sweden, and Laponia in the north...

 in Finland, circa 1650 - died in Stockholm 1732). He was a Lutheran minister and a schoolteacher who, due to contacts with early pietist literature, came to be tormented by religious doubt, guilt, and general anxiety. He first caused a stir in the beginning of the 1680s by blowing up his philosophical works in Oulu

Oulu

Oulu is a city and municipality of inhabitants in the region of Northern Ostrobothnia, in Finland. It is the most populous city in Northern Finland and the sixth most populous city in the country. It is one of the northernmost larger cities in the world....

. He also renounced his priesthood in the Lutheran church and his schoolteacher job.

He then fell ill (or so it was thought by those who didn't understand his prophet

Prophet

In religion, a prophet, from the Greek word προφήτης profitis meaning "foreteller", is an individual who is claimed to have been contacted by the supernatural or the divine, and serves as an intermediary with humanity, delivering this newfound knowledge from the supernatural entity to other people...

ic calling) and for about two years he neither washed himself nor had his hair or beard cut. In his agony he turned to the local vicar, asking for public absolution for his sins. The vicar explained to him that such scruples were merely the work of the devil and he should not pay attention to them.

On July 22, 1688, Ulstadius then in due course appeared in the Dome of Turku in his rags, with his hair hanging long and with a huge matted beard, interrupting the service by starting to read aloud the radical theses he had written down. Like some Old Testament prophet, he proclaimed that the Lutheran doctrine was to be doomed, that prayer books and postil

Postil

Postil or Postilla: a medieval Latin term for a marginal note or a Biblical commentary affixed to a text, being an abbreviation of the phrase post illa verba textus...

s were a bunch of lies, and that the ministers were not endowed with the Holy Spirit.

When two men grabbed him to throw him out of the Dome, what was left of his humble dress fell off and poor Ulstadius stood there naked, only covered by his long hair and beard. He then ran down the main isle of the church, bare naked, screaming that the disgrace of Finnish clergymen will once be revealed like his disgrace now.

Ulstadius and two of his most impassioned followers were sentenced to death, but the conviction was changed to life in prison. Ulstadius was then sent to the infamous prison Smedjegården in Stockholm

Stockholm

Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...

, capital of the Swedish Empire

Swedish Empire

The Swedish Empire refers to the Kingdom of Sweden between 1561 and 1721 . During this time, Sweden was one of the great European powers. In Swedish, the period is called Stormaktstiden, literally meaning "the Great Power Era"...

, where he remained for the rest of his life, for many years under very hard conditions.

During the end years, when he was an old man, he once was offered the freedom, but when he learned that his freedom was only a pardon, not a change of the original conviction, he said that he didn't want such a freedom, and asked to stay in the prison.

He was granted that, and they also gave him better conditions, so that he even was able to hold meetings and prayers in his prison cell, together with the people of the growing Radical-Pietistic movement in Stockholm, during that time.

He finally died in 1732, 82 years old. He had then been in prison for 44 years, and was remembered long after, both in Finland and Sweden, as a forerunner for the Pietist revival and for free revivals as a whole.

See also

• Pietism
  Pietism
  Pietism was a movement within Lutheranism, lasting from the late 17th century to the mid-18th century and later. It proved to be very influential throughout Protestantism and Anabaptism, inspiring not only Anglican priest John Wesley to begin the Methodist movement, but also Alexander Mack to...
  
  
• Radical Pietism
  Radical Pietism
  Radical Pietism refers to a movement within Protestantism, lasting from the late 17th century to the mid 18th century and later, which emphasized the need for a "religion of the heart" instead of the head, and was characterized by ethical purity, inward devotion, charity, asceticism, and even...
  
  
• Johann Conrad Dippel
  Johann Conrad Dippel
  Johann Konrad Dippel was a German pietist theologian, alchemist and physician.-Life:He was born at Castle Frankenstein near Mühltal and Darmstadt, and therefore once the addendum Franckensteinensis and once the addendum Franckensteina-Strataemontanus was used.He studied theology, philosophy and...
  
  
• Thomas Leopold
  Thomas Leopold
  Thomas Leopold, born 1693 near Kristianstad, Scania, dead 1771 in Kungälv, was one of the prophets and martyrs of the Swedish Pietist movement during the 18th century....