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 Oulu’s English-language International Church has split in two, bringing to a head an acrimonious row between a large part of the congregation and the priest. The overwhelming majority now meet in a Tuira flat where they feel there is more ‘community.’
According to Rev. Arpad Kovacs, Oulu Lutheran Church’s ‘Pastor for International Work’, the schism in the Lutheran Church-run congregation occurred a few weeks ago after months of tension between himself and church members. One Sunday, Mr. Kovacs claimed he was ill but was not able to tell people in advance that the service was cancelled. After they turned up at the Cathedral to find it locked, many of the congregation decided to formally break away. One Ethiopian man, who has left Mr Kovacs’ congregation, declared, ‘There was no discussion. Nobody was asked. We turned up. There was no service. Just a note. Why was there nobody to tell us? We just felt disappointed.’ There had also been other weeks where there was no service, members of the splinter group claimed. Many years ago, international Christians formed the International Christian Fellowship of Oulu (ICFO) which began as a Bible Study in 1976. More recently, this became a project of the Lutheran Church, which did not recognise ICFO as a church in itself. According to one ICFO leader, ‘ICFO began to meet in a Lutheran Church’ and the Lutheran Church ‘appointed Arpad the group’s pastor in 2002.’ Mr. Kovacs, who returned to the job in 2006 after a year’s sabbatical, disputes this. He claims that, before the split, his congregation included many people ‘who were not in ICFO’ and that he was appointed ‘Pastor for International Work.’ ‘I was not appointed pastor of ICFO,’ he told 65DN. But, after Kovacs’ Sunday no show, ICFO felt that it was time to break away from Mr. Kovacs and his broader congregation altogether.
‘Putting Outsiders Off’
In an interview with 65DN, Arpad Kovacs, who originally came to Finland as an asylum-seeker, explained that the tensions escalated when he chose to move the service from St Luke’s Chapel, near the university, to the Cathedral and change the time of the meeting. ‘We moved the service to the Cathedral to be available to a far wider public,’ said Mr. Kovacs. ‘St Luke’s Chapel is obscure and not everyone was happy.’ Also, the worship had become ‘too informal’ which Mr. Kovacs felt was ‘putting outsiders off.’ The church ‘was a closed circle,’ claimed the priest, who fled Slobodan Milosevic’s Yugoslavia in 1992 after setting up an opposition, Hungarian-language newspaper in his native Serbia. ‘The move to the Cathedral was to make it more formal . . . to welcome everyone.’ Mr. Kovacs claimed that this ‘informality’ reflected the congregation’s dominance by the ‘fundamentalist Christians’ that, in his view, made up the ICFO. In church politics terms, his church had been taken over by the Bible-based, socially conservative ‘Low Church’ rather than the more ritual-oriented and normally more socially liberal ‘High Church.’ ‘The church had started to look like just this small group – ICFO,’ claimed Mr. Kovacs. But he argued that because the group was under the umbrella of the Finnish Lutheran Church, ICFO’s dominance had to be stopped. ‘ICFO do not respect the Lutheran liturgy,’ said Mr. Kovacs. ‘I don’t accept spontaneous prayer or testimony in my services.’
‘Only ICFO Offended’
When questioned about how his failure to inform church members that he could not attend the service had upset people, Mr. Kovacs responded that it was ‘only members of ICFO that were offended . . . I was ill. I had no energy. And I don’t feel it is my responsibility to organise a service for ICFO. I am not the pastor of ICFO!’ Mr. Kovacs emphasised that ICFO had merely been, in his view, a highly vocal and demanding group within the International Congregation. ‘They wanted to invite fundamentalist speakers . . . they wanted sermons to be a certain length . . . they wanted to pray at coffee time . . . they were heavily influenced by American Baptists . . . some were against Evolution!’ he said. He felt that their ‘dominance’ put off other more liberal Christians in Oulu, undermining what he felt was part of his work. Also, in his view, their understanding of ‘Christian’ was extremely narrow. ‘They are also Anti-Catholic and Anti-Orthodox and Orthodox is an official church in Finland,’ he said. Just before the split, Mr. Kovacs claimed, some ICFO members would not come for his service but would only come for the coffee afterwards which was organised by ICFO themselves.
Preaching not ‘Biblical’
Members of ICFO now meet at the Tuira flat of Rev. Patrick Dickson, who is originally from South Africa. Mr Dickson is a Lutheran priest and recent election candidate for the religiously conservative Christian Democrats party. According to one of ICFO’s leaders, Patrick Nesbitt, there are deep theological reasons for the schism. The teacher from Indiana in the USA claimed that, before the split, the church was, ‘drifting away from the Word of God, of what at the core is the essential Good News (of Christianity).’ Mr Nesbitt, who subedits 65DN, blamed a ‘slow build up’ of problems on the split but felt that Mr Kovacs was certainly a part of the reason. People objected because Mr Kovacs’ preaching was not ‘Biblical.’ ‘There were basic differences between us. Biblically, a church needs a shepherd,’ said Mr Nesbitt. He also denied that ICFO are ‘fundamentalists,’ preferring the term ‘Bible believing.’ Mr Nesbitt further argued that, ‘the very condescension with which the general public views Bible-believing Christians is fundamentalist. Perceiving anyone as backwards or Medieval in their thinking is a latent form of narrow-mindedness,’ he claimed. ICFO members also objected to Mr Kovacs’ emphasis on ‘tradition’ and ‘ritual’ which Mr Nesbitt felt sometimes, ‘places tradition over God’s word.’ But now, apparently, there’s ‘a warmer, friendlier contact with the pastor, with members really caring about each other.’ According to Mr Nesbitt, some worshippers may just want tradition and ritual but what ICFO members wanted in a church was ‘a Christian community’ and that is what they feel they now have. When asked about whether their group, ultimately run by a Lutheran pastor, was undermining the Lutheran church’s international work, Nesbitt responded that members could still go to the Cathedral service later in the day. But he added that, ‘When asked to choose between a dead and a living church, one must take a stand.’
Two different services
The two international services are certainly different. The ICFO service last Sunday took place in a large front room. There were about seventeen worshippers from all over the world: the USA, Germany, Holland, Finland, Ethiopia, Iran, Armenia, Russia, China and the Ivory Coast. The style was informal, with members remaining seated throughout. There was no communion and no ordained priest. The preacher, last week Patrick Nesbitt, referred to his sermon as a ‘message’ and all the members read their Bibles along with him. At the end of the service there was random prayer and ‘testimony’ (discussing God’s perceived action in your life). The service in the Cathedral Crypt reflects a more traditionally Lutheran order of service with organ music, traditional hymns, candles, communion and an ordained priest in robes. However, it is sometimes surprisingly lively for a ‘traditional’ service. A large percentage of the remaining congregation are Sudanese refugees who used to be part of a separate Sudanese, Arabic language, Anglican (Church of England) congregation in Oulu. There is even a Sudanese deacon – Rev. Amos Manga - working alongside Mr Kovacs in some of the Cathedral services. Some of the hymns are Sudanese. Many Sudanese congregants dance while they sing these and, some weeks, there is even ululating from one female Sudanese worshipper. Other than the many Sudanese, worshippers this week included people from the USA, England, Germany, Ghana and Sweden. Oulu’s more traditional international church meets in the Cathedral on Sunday evenings at 6pm. ICFO meets at Koskitie 7 in Tuira on Sunday afternoons at 3pm.
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