FINLAND and Sweden submitted their formal accession applications to NATO on Wednesday. Their membership is expected to gain fast-track approval.
The Swedish Prime Minister, Magdalena Andersson, said that the country’s application, alongside that of Finland, was in recognition that Europe was now “living in a dangerous new reality”.
Churches in Finland and Sweden avoided a collective statement on their countries’ applications, despite their outraged opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“NATO membership has been raised at our Church’s General Synod, and it was established that this lies outside the Church’s responsibility and competence,” the Church of Sweden’s press officer, Lina Beutler, said on Tuesday.
“It isn’t a pastoral matter, or something for us to hold a joint opinion about. If Christians are worried about the associated dangers, it’s up to local congregations to counsel them.”
The Evangelical Lutheran Bishop of Mikkeli, in Finland, the Rt Revd Seppo Antero Häkkinen, said that his Church accepted “armed national defence” when “sovereignty, democracy, and human rights are threatened”, but that Finns should “ultimately take responsibility for defending their borders and social order.
“Decision-making power belongs to our country’s state leadership; NATO membership isn’t the end of foreign and security policy, but the beginning,” Bishop Häkkinen said in a statement last week. “It’s important for the Church to be able to build peace, trust, and mutual understanding, even in this new situation.”
Finland and Sweden are expected to join the Alliance — incorporating 3.5 million military personnel in 30 countries — by the end of this year, placing both countries, previously neutral EU members, under NATO’s collective security umbrella.
Confirmation of the planned move came as Finnish and Swedish troops took part in NATO exercises in the Baltic, alongside separate manoeuvres in Poland, Germany, and North Macedonia, and was accompanied by warnings from President Putin of Russia against the deployment of bases or “military infrastructure” on their territory.
Turkey has threatened to veto the two countries’ accession, referring to their hosting of Kurdish exiles and past support for weapons sanctions against Ankara.
Sweden’s Christian Council, grouping 26 member-Churches, criticised a mutual support memorandum with NATO in 2015, saying that there was a lack of public consultation. Since then, though, it has vigorously condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine, warning in an April statement that it was also considering the “ecumenical consequences”.
In a Lenten appeal, bishops from the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland also condemned Russia’s attack as a “crime against international justice and sin against God”. In a statement on 3 May, the Primate, the Archbishop of Turk, the Most Revd Tapio Luoma, said that the war demonstrated that “rules of the game created by international agreements” were being ignored.
Addressing an ecumenical prayer meeting on 9 May, Bishop Häkkinen said that Moscow had used “deception” and a “culture of lying”, and risked becoming “a rogue state rejected by the international community”.
Russian soldiers had “systematically stolen, tortured, raped, and killed civilians”, and the actions of the Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill had been “a grave disappointment both to his own faithful and to ecumenical partners. Unfortunately, democracy and human rights must sometimes be defended by means of tough security — it’s time has come,” the Bishop said.
His Church amended its annual budget this month to donate €500,000 to Ukraine. “The Russian leadership needs to know this: today, the world is watching with contempt the lewd parades of the Russian army of rapists. They are celebrating deeds deserving not honour but shame,” he said.