The Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church lost a total of 52,203 members last year, Helsingin Sanomat reports. The remaining members of the church now number 4,294,199, which equates to 80.6 of the population of Finland.
Before these latest figures, the church had reported its losses at only 48,268 people for the year; but that figure did not reflect Finns who had tendered their resignations at the last minute.
The difference between the two figures of 3,935 people indicates that a great rush of people decided to leave the church in the closing stages of 2008.
The first official figures and the amended accurate figure are both considerably higher than 2007, which was already considered a record bad year for the Church of Finland’s leeching of followers.
I am not sure that I understand the the article. Can somebody give some background on this? Is it that the Finnish church taxes or tithes all memebers? Is it done through the government or employers? If there is a tax or tithe, what exactly are the Finnish people getting in return?
If it is coming down to money then of course they should have expected a drop in participation at the end of 2008. Rumor has it that there may have been a slight hicup in the enconomies of the world.
Yep, looks like they can get the government to process the taxation of the Church’s members:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelical_Lutheran_Church_of_Finland#Position_in_Finnish_society