Laestadianism is a Lutheran revivalist movement founded on the spiritual work of a Swedish-Sámi botanist and preacher Lars Levi Laestadius (1800–1861). Today, while being most prominent in Finland, it has members in the Scandinavian and Baltic countries as well as in Russia and North America and smaller congregations around the world. There are estimated 200 000 laestadians worldwide. Laestadians are generally known for their conservative values and exclusive social identity. The history of the movement is characterized by disputes and divisions and laestadianism has split into several branches. I will focus on the movement of the movement both historically and geographically, and trace the continuity of laestadianism through different individual cases. I claim that the divisions of the movement can be seen as strategies of continuity. Divisions stem from the movement’s tendency toward absolute, which results in a paradox: in order to maintain unity, they must give it up. Laestadian world-view is a source of both coherence and conflict within the movement as well as in relation to “outside” world. Aspects of power and order(ing) are important in understanding the processes of continuity and change in laestadianism. Continuity of the movement seems different also from the point of view “the mainstream” and the separating group. In this paper I will discuss the themes of movement, continuity and change through an empirical case study of one of the disputes and divisions within laestadianism.
