Confirmation: a year and a celebration for you!

What does confirmation mean? The church, in which infants and children are baptised, also takes responsibility for enabling the growing baptised to give an account of their faith. In order for young people to profess the Christian faith, it must first have been brought to them. The Church derives the obligation to instruct from Jesus' command to baptise (Matthew 28:18-20). Confirmation (Latin: confirmatio = affirmation, strengthening) enables people to formulate their faith in their own words.

However, a look at the New Testament shows that there is no mention of confirmation at any point. The reason for this is that in early Christianity only adults were baptised, where the act of baptism and the confession of the baptised coincided. Confirmation was not developed until the Reformation.

In Finland, young people are usually confirmed in the year they turn 15. After that, they are of age according to Finnish church law and can take on a sponsorship. At the age of 16, a confirmed member of a congregation also receives the right to vote in the elections of church officers, which take place every 4 years. You also have to be a confirmed member of a congregation in Finland in order to be married in church.

The confirmation period consists of a total of 60 hours of lessons, in which the essentials about the Christian faith are worked out together. All churches in Finland offer confirmation classes - often a large part of the confirmation period takes place in the form of summer camps.

Confirmation in the German congregation

Every year a confirmation group is confirmed in our church. The confirmation period begins in September and usually includes monthly confirmation days and a confirmation retreat lasting several days. Usually the young people are confirmed in the German Evangelical Lutheran Congregation in Finland after the summer retreat at the beginning of the new school year. Classes are held in German - but it is not necessary to speak perfect German. Our youth worker Nadia will be happy to help with translations.

Baptised members of other Finnish congregations can also take part in the Konfi year of the German congregation. Young people who have not yet been baptised can also take part. They are usually baptised during the confirmation period. Of course, there is also the possibility to be confirmed as an adult.

Confirmation classes are free of charge - but we do ask for a contribution towards the costs of accommodation, free time, teaching materials and meals during the confirmation days.

For language reasons - or if the place of residence is not in the Helsinki area - it may be that a young person from our congregation cannot take part in our confirmation year in Helsinki. In this case it is of course possible to contact the local parish. Certificates of office required by other congregations for confirmation are issued directly by our church office.

For the family celebration of confirmation after the confirmation service, the German Congregation offers sufficient premises. Anyone interested in this can book the room with the parish secretary Anne Breiling, telephone 050 532 1975, email anne.breiling@evl.fi, or directly with the sexton of the German Church, Tobias Petruzelka, telephone 050 323 9598, email tobias.petruzelka@evl.fi.