Temppeliaukio Church + Icons of the Past
Hey everyone!
On my final day me and the fabulous Yoohoo Tours decided that we were going to go to the two big churches that were visible from the city. There was a third which was in the town centre where the Pride celebration started, however when I heard about the Lutheran church in the Töölö neighbourhood totally made of copper, and was part of a competition of design and was different, I thought it would be a fascinating one to explore. The church was designed by architects and brothers Timo and Tuomo and was an entirely different experience to what I had imagined, it was literally like a mix between a sacred grotto and a charged coil.
The entire ceiling was an ellipse of copper, and the walls were drilled and exploded quartz or granite? It was just insane and you could see the evidence of the construction, and how they had repositioned the blocks to then form the structure of the walls. I grew up in a church and I’ve been to hundreds my whole childhood, I remember going to the tiniest church which I think like two people could have fitted into in Cornwall, and I’ve found a lot of them oppressive. This felt energetic and I don’t know if the combination of the materials aided in that, but it was my favourite that I’ve been to.
Spirituality for me is about finding things of faith within dark situations, and interpreting things that give you hope. This place was entirely formatted so that you could interpret things in an entirely individual way, the colour of the copper and the pinks that reflected, the crystalline walls, everything became alive.
When we look at MRI’s we can actually see that prayer does pretty much what mindfulness does, your brain, which in 2024 is overladen with stimuli, cannot self regulate the hormones that we produce under stress, and when we focus on a sense it lowers the cortisol and changes the brain, this has now been seen in the last ten years with the development of our medicine so if prayer does that for you, go at it! We all need to be introducing ways of coping and reset, and this church for me was intriguing because it did not have a historical grandeur or spiderwebs in stain-glass windows, or blood dripping icons. Which are fabulous for those who love it, but for me it was intimidating as a child. This felt like a reset hub, and we 100% need more of those.
The second church I visited was this incredible Russian orthodox church the Uspenski Cathedral, which was visible on the hill across the whole of the city centre. It was also seen on the boat cruise and was an incredible structure. The architecture was just opulent, as were the insides and it was open for free for people who wished to visit.
In contrast to above, this was a traditional church with depictions of dragons being slayed, an orthodox icon adorned with gold jewell’s, and for many is more a familiar sign of sanctuary or refuge. I find these types of churches a bit imposing, gorgeous, but disconnected for me with anything that provides a tangible sense of spirituality. I wanted to include both as I think they definitely appeal to different people in different ways.
