Johan Bastubacka

Johan Bastubacka is an Associate Professor at The Faculty of Theology, University of Helsinki. 
Link to presentation at University of Helsinki's page
E-mail: johan.bastubacka@helsinki.fi

Top publications:

Title: Tolerance, Oppression, and Misapprehension - Bishop Petrus Bjugge’s 1643 Report and the Swedish Legal, Religious, and Administrational Stance on the Orthodox in Ladogan Karelia
In: Tarald Rasmussen and Jørn Øyrehagen Sunde (eds.): Protestant Legacies of Nordic Law: The Early Modern Period (book title not yet decided)
Publisher and date: Brill, 2019

As the Kingdom of Sweden took over new eastern regions, it not only gained new land, but also generated a meeting of two different people, evolving different languages and writing systems, ecclesiastical structures, theological interpretations, law, and administrational practices and structures. Expansion eastwards meant that former Orthodox-Karelian majority became gradually a minority in its own territory.

This article investigates the practical impact of the emerging absolute monarch as the head of the Lutheran church and a divinely authorized administration executed on religious others in the kingdom, the Kexholm Orthodox, in particular. At the core of the analysis are Lutheran bishop Bjugge’s report of 1643 and the reply from central government in 1644.

Title:  Mirroring the Majority? - The Emerging Legal Understanding on Finnish Orthodoxy in terms of the 1925 Government Decree
In: 
Publisher and date: 2018

This article focuses on the legal development that took place with the Orthodox minority in the early years of the Republic of Finland. Minorities may be required or invited to adapt and modify their practices in and through historical occurrences, and in these processes, hegemonies can be (re)negotiated, established, and reconsidered. It is the interest to study here, as to how – within the political, ecclesiastical-political, and even theological framework of the era – previous stipulations and legislation concerning the Orthodox minority became modified and integrated into national Finnish legislation.

Title: Minority, Media, and Law - Reality TV, Orthodox Canon Law, Secular Finnish and European Legislation. 
In: Pamela Slotte, Niels Henrik Gregersen and Helge Årsheim (eds.): Internationalization and re-confessionalization. 
Publisher and date: Forthcoming

This article studies the manners in which a “problem” or “event” of the deposition of one Orthodox priest – as a result of his “forbidden love” – was represented and framed in Finnish nation-wide TV. It is of special interest to analyze the minority’s legal culture as framed and reflected in one prominent media production. What became understood, omitted, and misunderstood, and how? Ultimately, the article analyzes the media-publicity of this case as related to its jurisprudence.