April 15, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — Two Christian pastors were arrested and detained in Espoo, Finland, for over four hours last Sunday, presumably in order to stop them from resuming an outdoor worship service that had been interrupted by police because of COVID-19 regulations. The two pastors were unable to obtain clear information about why they had been detained, according to a video report posted in English on YouTube by another pastor, Miska Wilhelmsson, who is a friend of the two men, and who sometimes preaches during their services.
The incident took place on Sunday, April 11, when a few dozen members of the Baptist-affiliated “home church” (Kottikirko) gathered on a large, airy plaza surrounded by closed shops and restaurants for their public worship that was also being filmed for faithful to follow on internet. According to the congregation’s website, it was the fifth Sunday running that the Christian group held its Sunday gathering in the open air in the southern Finnish town of Espoo.
The Espoo Kottikirko is a fully registered and officially recognized church in Finland, with all the legal and constitutional rights afforded to religious assemblies and churches in the country. In his video, Wilhelmsson stated that despite
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