24/07/2020
Fare thee well servant of God.
REV DR. ANSSI SIMOJOKI, FORMER MISSIONARY TO THE ELCK HAS RESTED IN THE LORD.
The Rev Dr Anssi Simojoki who served in the ELCK as a Missionary from LEAF and later pioneered the translation work of the LHF in Kenya and Africa, has rested in the Lord. Dr Simojoki, who was 75 years old, passed away earlier this month, while in his garden at home in Finland, on Wednesday, the 6th of July 2020.
The Pastor who was born in 1944 was ordained in 1972 by the Archbishop Martti Simojoki of the Archdiocese of Turku. The Archbishop was therefore the spiritual head of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland between 1964 and 1978, and was the also the first Bishop of the Diocese of Helsinki which was established in 1959 from the Diocese of Tampere.
Dr. Simojoki came to Kenya in 1989 to serve as a missionary of the Lutheran Evangelical Association of Finland (LEAF). He served as a lecturer at the Matongo Lutheran Theological Seminary and was later posted as the leader of the then Nairobi District, where he also served as the Senior Pastor at Uhuru Highway Lutheran Congregation. It was while serving there that he enrolled at Åbo Akademi University for a doctoral program, which he completed in 1997, with his doctoral thesis being on ‘The reception of the Book of Revelation in Finnish theology’.
While serving as the Nairobi District leader there was outreach programs that established early contacts with hitherto Lutheran unreached Communities like the Kikuyu, Kamba, Embu, Meru and others at the Coast, among others.
In 1996, with the support of the Association of the Western Finland Prayer Movement, he joined the Lutheran Heritage Foundation, pioneering their work in Africa. In that role, he led numerous translation projects of Lutheran literature into dozens of African languages. He taught in many countries across the continent, including in Kenya, Tanzania, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Together with Rev. Dr. Robert Rahn and Rev. Andrew Mbugo, he helped found the Evangelical Lutheran Church in South Sudan and Sudan. He also helped lead Gospel ministry efforts in hostile places like Somalia, Afghanistan, and Turkey. Before retiring in 2010, Dr. Simojoki completed a translation of the Lutheran Confessions into Swahili.
Dr. Simojoki helped to establish the Finnish Luther Foundation in 1999, and was subsequently also involved in the founding of the Evangelical Lutheran Mission Diocese of Finland (ELMDF). He served as chairman of that Church’s Lutheran Hymns committee, producing a number of new hymns through original writing and translation.
For many years Rev Simojoki was vocal about the ‘drifting away’ of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Finland from faithful adherence to its foundational pillars of the Holy Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions. Starting first with the question of women ordination and escalating later to the issues of the Church’s blessing of same s*x unions.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland approved special prayers for same-s*x couples following a civil union or marriage. The archbishop, who supported the prayers, "called for the church to take a clear and unequivocal stance in support of gay and le***an couples".Some bishops are willing to ordain gay and le***an pastors.However Marriage is by church law still defined as a union between one man and one woman, changing the law would require a 3/4 majority vote among church council voters.
A research conducted based upon six sets of representative surveys among the Finnish population, the employees of the ELCF and the elected officials of the ELCF between the years 2012–2017 found that Whereas the majorities (55%) among the Finnish population and among the ELCF members (54%) are already favourable to the idea that same-s*x couples should have the right to marry in the church, the ELCF has not approved of it.
This situation has polarized the ELCF from within. Empirical analysis shows that the reason for the discrepancy between popular opinion and the ELCF stance stems from the fact that ELCF decision makers are older and more religious than the general membership. However, the data also shows that even among the most religious, younger age groups are already more favourable towards the same-s*x marriage. Therefore, it is likely that the polarisation will lessen over time as more and more religious people accept same-s*x marriage.
On 1 December 2014, The ‘Independent ‘ Reported on its website that ,Thousands of people have resigned from the Lutheran church in Finland after its Archbishop said he rejoiced “with my whole heart” following the government vote to legalize same-s*x marriage.
According to Finland’s YLE, between the time that the vote went through on Friday and midnight on Saturday almost 7,800 people had resigned from the church using an online system that aims to ease people’s resignation.
Each person who resigns their membership also resigns their commitment to pay taxes to the church, which is the Lutheran church’s main source of income in Finland, YLE reports.
The church has no official policy on the ordination of gay clergy, and, since 2002, "one bishop has declared his willingness to ordain homos*xuals." The synod of bishops has stated that s*xual minorities should not be shunned or persecuted, but that they are, as all people, responsible for the applications of their s*xuality. In 2010, the church took a more open position and voted to allow prayer services to be given following a civil same-s*x union. The purpose of such prayer services, according to the Finnish Lutheran synod and archbishop, is to take a "clear and unequivocal stance in support of gay and le***an couples". According to church policy on same-s*x civil partnerships, "the couple may organise prayers with a priest or other church workers and invited guests. This may take place on church premises."
In 2012, the Diocese of Kuopio appointed an openly transgender pastor to an office in the church.
Starting from the 1986 decision of the ELCF to accept women’s ordination which led to an increasingly problematic co-existence of two theologies of the Office, many Christians felt increasingly displaced in a Church ws drifting away theologically from its traditional positions,and they were trying to find services that they could attend with a clear conscience.
-In 1999, the Luther Foundation Finland was founded to respond to this problem. Its first pastor was ordained by the last traditionally minded Bishop, the Bishop of Oulu.
-As its work within the structures of the ELCF became impossible, and as the ELCF was putting an end to ordaining men who openly held the traditional view of the Office, the Luther Foundation joined the Mission Province in Sweden in 2005. Joint ordinations took place in Sweden and the work began to grow rapidly. It is important to note that the first Bishop of the Mission Province in Sweden was consecrated by the ELCK’s own Archbishop Walter Obare.
-In 2010, Matti Väisänen was consecrated as its first Finnish bishop and was promptly defrocked by the ELCF.
Meanwhile the ELCF hardened its stand, and even refused to ordain Pastors, who found it hard to agree with this theological position adopted by the Bishops.
It was his commitment to this cause and his membership in the Evangelical Lutheran Mission Diocese of Finland(ELMDF) that led the Turku Archdiocese to defrock him and four others from ministry in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland in 2014.
In its decision, the Cathedral Chapter states that the five pastors have turned out to be “manifestly unfit” for the Office of the Ministry in the ELCF. Additionally, they have “broken their ordination vows” by serving as pastors in the Mission Diocese. The vows are made in conjunction with ordination into the Ministry and bind the ordained to the Church’s doctrine and to ELCF Church Order.
ELCF Bishop of Turku, Kaarlo Kalliala, stressed in a press release that the decision had to do with Pastors “officiating in another church” and that it is “not a statement on the faith” of the newly defrocked Pastors.
– ‘It is a shame that the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, as it is, is no good for them’ Bishop Kalliala concluded.
Mission Diocese, Bishop Risto Soramies responded to this claim in his blog post.
– Kalliala’s statement is descriptive in all its un-thoughtfulness: this is the church’s way of showing the opposite, that these pastors are no good for the church and that the flock that they serve is irrelevant to the church. Both our pastors and congregation members would gladly have stayed in the church [ELCF]. It is not they but the church that has gone astray.
In service of the Mission Diocese, Rev Sakari Korpinen, Rev Miika Nieminen, Rev Dr Anssi Simojoki, Rev Markku Sumiala and Rev Dr Martti Vaahtoranta have preached the Gospel and have conducted Divine Services without permission from the ELCF Cathedral Chapter. They have done so in order to respond to calls from Christians who have been left displaced in the ELCF amidst the changes in its teaching and practice.
The defrocked Pastors will continue this Ministry in service of the congregations of the Mission Diocese, Bishop Risto Soramies of the Mission Diocese states.
He spent his remaining years helping to build the Mission Diocese. In 2014, the Mission Diocese published a Festschrift in honour of his 70th birthday, the title of which summed up Simojoki’s spiritual heritage: It is True as it is Written.
-From one congregation with a part-time pastor in Helsinki in 1999, the Mission Diocese has grown into a nationwide network of 28 congregations and several missions tended by a College of 22 paid and numerous non-stipendiary pastors
In retirement, Dr. Simojoki continued to serve as pastor to the Laitila congregation of the Mission Diocese. The day before his death, he preached his final sermon at the congregation’s summer festival in Pyhäranta.
Dr. Simojoki is survived by his wife Marja, their six children, and twenty-four grandchildren. Marja Simojoki, apart from being a Missionary also served for many years at the Finnish Embassy in Nairobi.
Rev. Dr. Simojoki’s motto was Ps. 118:17, I shall not die but I shall live and recount the deeds of the Lord.
From Reports in ELMDF, LHF, Wikipedia and others.
The ELMDF and ELCK are members of the International Lutheran Council, a global association of confessional Lutheran church bodies.
