Eroakirkosta.fi is a Finnish website which offers an electronic service for resigning from Finland's state churches; the

Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland (; ) is a national church of Finland. It is part of the Lutheranism, Lutheran branch of Christianity. The church has a legal position as a national church in the country, along with the Orthodox Church o ...

and the

Finnish Orthodox Church The Orthodox Church in Finland (; ) is an Autonomy (Eastern Orthodoxy), autonomous Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodox archdiocese of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. The church has a legal position as a national church in th ...

. "Eroa kirkosta" translates to "resign from the church". The website was created by Freethinkers of Tampere, an organisation that supports a formal

separation of church and state The separation of church and state is a philosophical and Jurisprudence, jurisprudential concept for defining political distance in the relationship between religious organizations and the State (polity), state. Conceptually, the term refers to ...

, and opened on 21 November 2003. The Finnish law on

freedom of religion Freedom of religion or religious liberty, also known as freedom of religion or belief (FoRB), is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or community, in public or private, to manifest religion or belief in teaching, practice ...

was updated on 1 August 2003 and then allowed resigning from religions without a visit to a bureau. Because eroakirkosta.fi is not maintained by

magistrate The term magistrate is used in a variety of systems of governments and laws to refer to a civilian officer who administers the law. In ancient Rome, a '' magistratus'' was one of the highest ranking government officers, and possessed both judi ...

s, the website can not directly resign a person from a church. Instead, the website forwards the filled-in resignation forms to magistrates who then complete the resignation. Resignations through

e-mail Electronic mail (usually shortened to email; alternatively hyphenated e-mail) is a method of transmitting and receiving Digital media, digital messages using electronics, electronic devices over a computer network. It was conceived in the ...

are allowed because the Finnish law requires resignations to be "in writing" but not " signed". Eroakirkosta.fi also gives the user the alternative to print the resignation form and send it through regular

mail The mail or post is a system for physically transporting postcards, letter (message), letters, and parcel (package), parcels. A postal service can be private or public, though many governments place restrictions on private systems. Since the mid ...

. Eroakirkosta.fi became popular very quickly. Within ten weeks over 1,400 people had resigned through the website. In 2004, almost 39% of all resignations in the country were done through eroakirkosta.fi. In 2005, the percentage increased to 68.9. In 2006, almost four out of five persons resigned through the website. The total resignation rates in Finland have also increased. The number of people resigning from the state churches has tripled in six years (2000–2006), and the 2005 and 2006 resignation numbers both break the old record of 30,710 from 1992. 47 300 members left the church through the service in 2008, that is 91% of all resignations (52,200). In 2011, 46,502 resignations and in 2012, 41,261 resignations were registered at the Eroakirkosta.fi site.

Publicity

The web service received publicity October 2010, after a gay rights panel discussion on TV on 12 October was followed by thousands of people resigning from the Evangelical Lutheran Church by using the service.

Resignation statistics

From inception through the end of 2017 more than 700 000 Finns out of a total population of 5.5 million resigned using the Eroa Kirkosta website, for the number of resignations by year refer table below.

References

External links

Eroakirkosta.fi

Freethinkers of Tampere
* Slashdot
'' Internet Deconstructing State Church in Finland''
an
'' Internet Dismantling the State Church in Finland''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Eroakirkosta.Fi Finnish websites Secularism in Europe Religion in Finland Apostasy Internet properties established in 2003 Anti-Christian sentiment in Europe Finnish critics of Christianity