RIISA – Orthodox Church Museum of Finland

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RIISA – Orthodox Church Museum of Finland is in Hatsala, Kuopio. It studies, preserves, and archives the visual and tangible heritage of the Finnish Orthodox Church. The museum was established in 1957, growing from an earlier Collection of Ancient Objects started in 1911 at Valamo Monastery. After World War II, Karelia’s parishes and monasteries—Valamo, Konevsky, and Pechenga—were evacuated to Finland, and their belongings became the core of RIISA’s collections.

The museum holds one of the world’s most important collections of Orthodox icons, ecclesiastical items, and liturgical textiles, mostly from the 18th and 19th centuries, with the oldest pieces dating to the 12th century. Highlights include gifts from the Russian imperial family, a wooden ladle and a pectoral cross belonging to Saint Arseny of Konevsky, and 12th-century Georgian-Byzantine gilded enamel miniatures. It also houses rare printed and handwritten books, as well as many photographs, blueprints, and maps.

The building was designed by Dag Englund and opened in 1969. Before moving to its current site in Hatsala, parts of the collection were shown in a cellar of a clergy house in Kuopio. In 2015, RIISA reopened after refurbishment with a new basic exhibition that traces Orthodox history from Byzantium to modern Finland. The displays cover themes such as a chapel in Karelia, icon painting, the Valamo Collection of Ancient Objects, Orthodox sacraments, the church calendar, and resurrection.