The Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (commonly known as the Suomi Synod) was established in 1890. It was one of the Lutheran church bodies that merged into the Lutheran Church in America (LCA) in 1962. Lutheranism is a major branch of Western Christianity that identifies with the teachings of the sixteenth-century German reformer Martin Luther The Lutheran Church in America (LCA was a US Lutheran church body that existed from 1962 to 1987 It was defined more by its Finnish ethnic origin than by any specific theological strain. The terms Finns and Finnish people ( Finnish: suomalaiset, Swedish: finländare) are used in English to In 1962, the FELC had 25000 members in 79 congregations, and was the smallest of LCA's founding church bodies. The LCA was party to the merger that created the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in 1988. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America ( ELCA) is a mainline Protestant denomination headquartered in Chicago Illinois.

In 1896, the church established Suomi College and Theological Seminary ( now called Finlandia University) in Hancock, Michigan. Finlandia University in Hancock Michigan, USA is a baccalaureate degree-granting co-educational Learning community dedicated to academic excellence spiritual Hancock is a City in Houghton County. It is the northernmost city in the U

Presidents

• J. K. Nikander 1890–1898
• K. L. Tolonen 1898–1902
• J. K. Nikander 1902–1919
• John Wargelin 1919-1919
• Alvar Rautalahti 1919–1922
• Alfred Haapanen 1922–1950
• John Wargelin 1950-1955
• Raymond Waldemar Wargelin 1955–1962

External links

• History of church thru 1945