2.2.2 Religion
Description
This article is from the Nordic countries FAQ, by Antti Lahelma and Johan Olofsson, with numerous contributions by others.
2.2.2 Religion
The Germanic pagan religion has left its mark on customs and
festivals; celebrations with bonfires and maypoles mark the Finnish
and Swedish midsummer, and the Nordic Christmas bears many
similarities to the midwinter feast of the Vikings, starting with the
word for Christmas (sw. Jul, fin. Joulu) which comes from the Old
Germanic word "hjul", meaning the wheel of the year. Trolls and gnomes
still inhabit Nordic households, although the once revered and feared
mythical beings have been reduced to the lowly caste of soft toys.
The Finns and the Sámi ought to have a common set of folklore and old
relicts of religious traditions, but it is rather hard to find a
common denominator for Fenno-Ugric traditions. For instance are the
Sámi the only Fenno-Ugrians where shamans are known. Probably the
Finns and the northern Germanians have made impressions in both
directions. In any case: Bears had a central role in myths and rites,
and beings ruling the nature, Haltia in Finnish, are more central in
the Finnish and Sámi tradition than among other Nordeners.
The Nordic peoples were converted to Catholicism in the 10th to 12th
centuries, but the Lutheran reformation embraced in all Nordic
countries wiped out most of the Catholic customs and memories in the
course of the 16th century. Having become a stronghold of
protestantism against Catholics in the south and Greek Orthodox in the
east had some unifying effect on Scandinavia even though wars between
the countries kept raging on; religion was, after all, the most
important basis of one's identity well into the 18th century. The
Lutheran ideal was to require the common people to be able to read the
Bible on their own, which had a enormous educating effect on the
Nordic peoples. This, along with the protestant work ethic, had a
significant role in the forming of the Scandinavian societies,
enabling their economic and cultural growth and the pioneering work
that the Nordics have played in decreasing social inequality. No doubt
it also shaped the national character of each country to a similar
direction (a common complaint in Norden: we're such joyless, grey and
angst-ridden people ---> it's all the Lutheran Church's fault! :->
Even today, all five Nordic countries have a Lutheran state church to
which a vast majority of the population belongs (there is of course
full freedom of religion granted by the constitutions of the five
countries). Paradoxically, this is probably the reason why
Scandinavians are among the most secular peoples on the face of the
earth. Despite its seemingly all-pervasive presence in various state
institutions and the ceremonies guiding the life of the average
Scandinavian, Lutheranism has in most parts of Scandinavia retreated
to the fringes of culture and has little meaning to the average
person. Church attendance is record-low, the liberal morals hardly
reflect specifically Lutheran ideals, religion is no major issue in
politics, etc. The official, institutionalized religion offered by the
state churches has to a large extent vaccinated the Nordics against
Christian fundamentalism of the American kind.
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