Roman Catholic Diocese of Helsinki
Diocese of Helsinki Dioecesis Helsinkiensis Helsingin katolinen hiippakunta - Helsingfors katolska stift | |
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| Location | |
| Country |  Finland |
| Territory | All Finland |
| Metropolitan | Immediately subject to the Holy See |
| Coordinates | 60°9′33.04″N 24°57′15.98″E / 60.1591778°N 24.9544389°E |
| Statistics | |
| Area | 338,424 km2 (130,666 sq mi) |
| Population - Total - Catholics | (as of 2018) 5,501,267 15,000[1] ( 0.2%) |
| Parishes | 8 |
| Information | |
| Denomination | Catholic |
| Rite | Latin Rite |
| Established | 1920 Established as Vicariate Apostolic of Finland; 1955 Erected as Diocese of Helsinki |
| Cathedral | St. Henry's Cathedral |
| Secular priests | 30 |
| Current leadership | |
| Pope | Francis |
| Bishop | Teemu Sippo, S.C.I. |
| Map | |
 The diocese of Helsinki comprises the entirety of the Republic of Finland. Helsinki is marked as a red dot. | |
| Website | |
| Diocese of Helsinki | |
The Catholic Diocese of Helsinki is a diocese of the Latin Rite of the Catholic church based in Helsinki, which comprises the whole of Finland. The diocese is divided into eight parishes.
The current Catholic Bishop of Helsinki is Teemu Sippo, S.C.I., the first ethnic Finn to hold the office since its reestablishment after the Reformation (previous bishops included three Dutch and a Pole). As of 2018 there are 15,000 registered catholic people living in Finland and around 10,000 unregistered members are there in the country. More than 6000 Catholic families are there in the total country where 50 percentage is Finns and rest is International community.
Parishes
- St. Henry's Cathedral, Helsinki (Sub Centres - Tapanila (Vantaa), Porvoo)
- St. Mary's Church, Helsinki (Sub Centres - Olari (Espoo), Hyvinkää, Karis)
- St. Brigit & Blessed Hemming Church, Turku (Sub Centres - Åland, Eurajoki, Pori)
- St. Olav's Church, Jyväskylä
- Holy Cross Church, Tampere (Sub Centres - Hämeenlinna, Kokkola, Kristinestad, Jakobstad, Seinäjoki, Vaasa)
- St. Ursula's Church, Kouvola (Sub Centres - Hamina, Kotka, Lahti, Lappeenranta)
- Holy Family of Nazareth Church, Oulu (Sub Centres - Rovaniemi, Tornio, Kemi, Kajaani)
- St. Joseph's Church, Kuopio (Sub Centres - Mikkeli, Savonlinna, Joensuu, Lieksa)
There is a high demand for starting a new parish at Northern Finland at Rovaniemi as it is the major tourist destination for Lapland and Santa Claus.
History
In 1550 the episcopate of the last Roman Catholic bishop of Åbo ended. Thereafter Lutheranism prevailed in Finland. The Reformation in the sixteenth century caused the loss of almost all of Northern Europe to the Roman Catholic Church. In 1582 the stray Catholics in Finland and elsewhere in Northern Europe were placed under the jurisdiction of a papal nuncio in Cologne. The Congregation de propaganda fide, on its establishment in 1622, took charge of the vast missionary field, which - at its third session - it divided among the nuncio of Brussels (for the Catholics in Denmark and Norway), the nuncio at Cologne (much of Northern Germany) and the nuncio to Poland (Finland, Mecklenburg, and Sweden).
In 1688 Finland became part of the Apostolic Vicariate of the Nordic Missions. In 1783 the Apostolic Vicariate of Sweden was created out of parts of the Nordic Missions comprising then Finland and Sweden. In 1809, when Finland came under Russian rule, the Roman Catholic jurisdiction passed on to the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Mohilev (then seated in St. Petersburg). In 1920 the Vatican established the Apostolic Vicariate of Finland which was upgraded to the Diocese of Helsinki in 1955.
Episcopal ordinaries
Apostolic Vicars of Finland
- Henri Buckx, SCI (1923–1933)
- Willem Cobben, SCI (1933–1955)
Bishops of Helsinki
- Willem Cobben, SCI (1955–1967)
- Paul Verschuren, SCI (1967–1998)
- Józef Wróbel, SCI (2001–2008)
- Teemu Sippo, SCI (2009– )[2]