Summary:

Marjatta Aittola, Birth and early stages of the Revivalist Movement in Narva and its´ relation to the revivalist movement of the Laestadian New Religious Revival until the year 1904

Pietism and Herrnhutism, which merged with the former, formed the background to the revivalist movement in Estonia and Ingria. The Laestadian revivalist movement reached St. Petersburg in the early 1870´ s and spread in 1886 to Narva, also. The first knowledge about the Revivalist Movement in Narva appeared in sources around 1895-1896. The history of the Revivalist Movement in Narva ( narvalaisuus ) is closely related to the Laestadian New Religious Revival in Finland. The supporters of the Laestadian New Religious Revival did not decide to join the Finnish Missionary Society ( SLS ) until 1908, although some of them had been in the Laestadian movement already much earlier. This also meant organizing into an association. The Revivalist Movement in Narva did not have an organization or its own newspaper. During 1895-1904 the supporters of the Revivalist Movement in Narva were both praised and accused. In most cases the accusations were mild and obscure and they did not require an assessment of the Revivalist Movement in Narva as a religious ecstasy. Later on historians were often guilty of this. There were two directions in the Laestadian new Religious Revival. One of them had largely the same views as Lars Levi Laestadius. This doctrinal direction was to a great extent the same as the Revivalist Movement in Narva, which by 1904 aggravated the split of the Laestadian new Religious Revival into two parts and the fragmentations of Laestadianism in general, because it made it necessary to take a stand on the questions, that had caused dissension. Very little remained of the Revivalist Movement in Narva around the year 1904.To a great extent the Revivalist Movement in Narva seemed to have merged with the Laestadian New Religious Revival, the Conservative Laestadians and the Laestadian Firstborns.”

 

Faravid 32/2008