ABSTRACT
The Finnish Orthodox Church (FOC) can be said to have been founded three times. In November 1918 the Finnish government issued a statute acknowledging the Russian diocese of Finland, founded in 1892, as the Finnish Orthodox Church (Suomen kreikkalaiskatolinen kirkko).2 In February 1921 the Moscow Patriarchate recognized the FOC statute and its autonomy under Moscow. Two years later, on request of the Finnish government and representatives of Finnish-speaking members of the FOC, the Patriarchate of Constantinople took care of the autonomous Finnish Church at the moment when the ‘most holy Church of Russia was unable to do so’, as the Tomos issued on July 1923 put it. Simultaneously, the Estonian Orthodox received autonomy under Constantinople, and until 1939 the FOC had intensive communication with its coreligionists.3
