Paavo Ruotsalainen

Paavo Ruotsalainen

Paavo Ruotsalainen , actually Påhl Henrik Ruotsalainen (born July 9, 1777 in Tölvänniemi, today in Lapinlahti ; † January 27, 1852 on the island of Aholansaari, belonging to Nilsiä ), known under the name Ukko-Paavo ( Old Paavo ), was a Finnish Farmer and lay preacher .

Paavo Ruotsalainen was born the eldest son of a farmer. He received his first Bible when he was six years old. At the time of his confirmation he had read it three times. His immersion in the words of the Bible earned him the nickname of foolish Paavo . When he heard from the lay pastor Jakob Högman in Jyväskylä in the winter of 1799 , he immediately walked the 200 km to Jyväskylä. This visit laid the foundation for his religious life.

Religious views

Jakob Högman was known as an avid reader of a revival book called "Kallis Hunajan Pisara" (Original title: The Choice Drop of Honey). He gave Paavo Ruotsalainen a copy of the book that would remain meaningful to Paavo throughout his life. Högman made it clear to Paavo that there was an extremely important thing that he would lack: the extreme spiritual poverty in which only Christ could bring grace.

Ruotsalainen never received any formal theological training, but he succeeded in sealing off and developing the central ideas of Lutheranism in the harsh northern environment against the accelerating change in society. The core of his teaching was that in the spiritual life man could only be the recipient of divine grace, never its producer. All he has to do is hold on to it and long for God to reveal himself. Paavo Ruotsalainen's thinking was an unusual mixture of old folk wisdom, theology and old Christian tradition. His thinking is perceived as fresh and original as well as vehement and harsh.

Paavo Ruotsalainen's farm on Aholansaari, Nilsiä

Ruotsalainen emphasized truthfulness and deep self-reflection. In his opinion, from God's point of view, it is better for a person to admit a lack or even the complete lack of faith than to force a religious conviction. Yet his advice to the seeking soul was to turn to God, whatever the feelings. In the midst of sorrow and despair, one should keep calling to God and God would respond in his own way. Paavo Ruotsalainen was guided by an ancient Christian theological tradition centered on God that revolves around who God is and how God acts, rather than religious traditions that focus on the spiritual life of the believer. In Paavo Ruotsalainen's view, belief is something that man cannot possibly achieve on his own. Faith, he is convinced, is a gift from God.

He was a passionate opponent of people he viewed as narrow-minded sectarians who believed a strict code of conduct was essential for a simple Christian life. He also defended the consumption of alcohol on the grounds that it was better to walk in sin than to try in vain to avoid it. It has even been alleged that Paavo Ruotsalainen loathed hypocrisy so much that in some cases his bottle contained only water while feigning public drunkenness in what has been called a curious act of reverse hypocrisy.

Revival movement

Paavo Ruotsalainen became the leader of the Finnish revival movement called Herännäisyys (Awakening). He traveled through Finland to meet with other members of the movement, especially pastors Jonas Lagus and Nils Gustav Malmberg in Österbotten . It is estimated that he traveled 40,000 km in total, mostly on foot. As the movement spread, both church and state authorities began to worry. In 1838/39 he was tried and sentenced, but the movement could not be stopped.

Ruotsalainen died in Nilsiä.

A later well-known representative of the Finnish revival movement was the sleep preacher Karolina Utriainen (1843–1929).

Postage stamp for the
200th birthday of
Paavo Ruotsalainen

Works

• Paavo Ruotsalainen: The Inward Knowledge of Christ: The Letters and Other Writings . Luther-Agricola Society, 1977, ISBN 978-951-99142-0-6 .

Cultural reception

In 1975 Ruotsalainen became the subject of the opera The Last Temptations of Joonas Kokkonen . The opera's libretto was written by Lauri Kokkonen, who had previously written a play under the same title.

In 1977 a stamp was issued in Finland on the occasion of Ruotsalainen's 200th birthday.

In the television program Suuret Suomalaiset ("Great Finns") in December 2004 he was voted 59th among the most important Finns according to the survey results.

In 2009 Jorma Pitkänen published the comic Paavo Ruotsalainen: viimeisimmät kiusaukset with the ISBN 978-952-5754-11-7 , published by the publisher Zum Teufel! in Turku.

Remembrance day

January 27 in the Evangelical Name Calendar . Before the introduction of the Protestant name calendar, the day of remembrance was already carried out in:

• Jörg Erb : The cloud of the witnesses , Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Kassel 1951/1963, calendar in volume 4, pp. 508-520
• Friedrich Hauß : Fathers of Christendom , Wuppertal 1956/1959, new edition Haan: Brockhaus 1991, ISBN 3-417-24625-3
• Alfred Ringwald: People before God , Verlag Junge Gemeinde, Stuttgart 1957/1968

literature

• Olavi Tarvainen: Paavo Ruotsalainen as a Lutheran Christian (Writings of the Luther-Agricola Society in Finland 6), Helsinki 1944.
• Burkard mug : Paavo Ruotsalainen. A witness of the revival in Finland (= witnesses of the present God. Vol. 184, ZDB -ID 533793-8 ). Brunnen-Verlag, Giessen 1969.
• Gustav Adolf Benrath, Martin Sallmann: The Pietism in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries , Volume 3 from the Martin Brecht series, Klaus Deppermann, Ulrich Gäbler, Hartmut Lehmann (editor): History of Pietism , Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2000, ISBN 3-525 -55348-X , p. 339ff, excerpt from [2] .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The Choice Drop of Honey by Thomas Wilcocks (1622)
2. ↑ Mikko Heimola: From Deprived to Revived: Religious Revivals as Adaptive Systems . De Gruyter 2013, ISBN 978-1-61451-454-1 , p. 138, extract from [1] .

Web links

Commons : Paavo Ruotsalainen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files