Previously it was stated that the doctrine and confession can't be changed, but here it is stated that 3/4 majority can change technical aspects of the confession.

I think this part should be fortified against heresies such as female pastors, universalism etc.

When there is conflict between the pastor and the congregation, without public sins or heresy, the bishop is the middleman in trying to resolve these issues.

Also, only the consistory can (or it requires their permission) sack a pastor from his office, not the congregation alone. Here again the power of the congregation has been shifted to the upper echelons of the church.

Accusations of heretical teachings are to be regarded like those of public sins.

This part just talks about how the thing (investigation) must be kept a secret/hidden while it's going on, how there have to usually be multiple witnesses and that the pastor is innocent until proven guilty.

A lot of very good, protective legal text, which for a pastor is good. IF a single congregant tries to smear you, it very like won't succeed.

The bishop and the consistory have the means to deal with problematic situations, the MD has to intervene if the sin of the pastor is: 1. exceptionally grave act or of neglect. 2. habitual 3. public or known in the congregation 4. directly related to the congregation or his office.

What does this mean exactly? I'm not sure. Adultery, alcoholism come to mind, but the bishop and consistory have the final say in the matter.

This may differ from the US context, but here it is explicitly stated that pastors can't, according to the 2 regiments, in congregation endorse a party or political members. Talking about questions that are political (abortion for an example) is allowed, but you can't preach that "Christians can only vote for party X".

This is a good thing and the MD seeks to remain faithful in the questions of two kingdoms by keeping them clearly separated.

The interesting part is that the congregation does call the pastor, and has the final say in the call, but it is the bishop who suggests candidates and potential pastors for the congregation.

The bishop and the congregation of course discuss these things together, but it's remarkable that the bishop can veto a congregation's choice if he sees fit.

This works for as long as the bishop isn't heretical, but problems may arise if the church becomes corrupted from the top end. It is odd that the congregation lacks freedom to call here whoever they wish to call, but this again shows the rigid nature of order in the MD.

It has to be noted though that in normal situations the communication is healthy and both parties are satisfied with results

Interesting that the pastor is responsible for ALL preaching and spiritual activity in the congregation, not the board or a collection of members.

I think this means that laypeople can teach, but it requires the permission of the pastor, which is a good thing.

Of course here it is stated that the sacrament is not to be given to heretics or unrepented sinners (public sins especially), so if a bishop or a pastor of the state church came to our service, they would not be served the sacrament.

However, why do we use this kind of strictness on the pastors of the state church, but not the laity who can be members of it?

This is what I dislike quite a bit about our communion practices, it says that everyone who have been baptised and confirmed (though children who haven't been confirmed yet but understand the meaning can partake per 13 §) and adhere to the Lutheran confessions can partake of the sacrament.

This means that a person can come and be a member of the state church and partake according to these rules, everyone who claims to be Lutheran can come to the table.

I know that this is an intermediate model, as we move towards registeration in the coming years (hopefully), but I would reserve the sacrament only for the members of the MD, because the current rules are way too open about this.

Here it is clearly stated that the eucharist is to be administrated by a/the pastor, not a layman. Layperson can be assisting, as they hold the paten, but they can't administer it.

This is a very strict, and good, decision for the sake of order and clarity, who are the representatives of Christ, who holds the keys in the sense that who is let to the table and who is not. I know that in some conservative revivalist movements in the state church lay women can be administering the sacrament, which destroys the whole "picture" of Christ feeding His flock.

I again encourage the reader to translate everything what is said here if he has time, but this is the point I have been talking about earlier.

"Divine services are to be held according to the Liturgical tradition, obeying the instructions of the consistory." This seems to put a very firm nail into the coffin of CoWo and soloing the liturgy. Pointing this out again, individual freedom of a congregation is very much limited here for the sake of order and unity.

The idea being that you could go to any MD divine service and they would be 90-95% liturgically same

This part is excellent, "If the person (whom is to be baptized) isn't going to become a member of the MD or he isn't going to become a member by the consent of his/her parents (infants), then the baptism in ordinary circumstances must not be administrated".

I love how clearly this outlines that baptism just for cultural reasons or to appease your grandparents isn't a good enough reason for it.

It is said that the congregations are free to "do what they want" as long as it doesn't go against this document and the confessions. I just have to ask how much freedom this actually entails, since this document is fairly strict regarding questions of doctrine and liturgy, which I believe is a good thing.

Though one has to ask, could a congregation have a contemporary worship service? I'm not advocating for it, but to me it would seem that this document doesn't allow it.

The Mission Diocese is split into regions (canons?), these regions consisting of congregations are led by a 'Rovasti' (dean, canon, not sure what is the English equivalent here, maybe DP for LCMS). This again helps with administrational and spiritual problems, a pastor facing trouble doesn't have to talk to the bishop directly, but can contact his closer superior first.

This is what I like about "strict" order in the church, yes, individual congregations aren't as free as in other models regarding their policies, economy, decisions (they aren't slaved of course) but they have unity and very clear structures to help with different kinds of problems.

Congregations cover the costs of the church body (of all congregations) together, like mentioned before, there is no flying solo. For rich, well off, big congregations this may seem unfair, but it does benefit the mission of the church all-together as long as the funds are being used wisely (the good stewardship aspect applies here to the whole church body, not just individual congregations).

The bishop must regularly (usually once a year) visit a congregation, when this happens there are specific instructions on how to handle that service and what happens after that, as the bishop is interacting with the congregation.

These visitations can be had to discuss policies or if the pastor isn't behaving well, meaning in church planting you as a pastor can call the bishop to visit if you are having issues you can't resolve.

I suggest the dear reader to translate the whole page with google translate about the consistory, because it's interesting, but I want to point out this last bit. The Bishop holds the authority (as a chairman) to call the consistory into session. This once again shows how much power the bishop (rightly) holds, I think the question remains then that can the dean or a pastor call up a consistory meeting if the bishop is being heretical?

Even though the consistory has a single layman with it, which is fine, it's good that they have outlined it to be male. Women should not be in positions to make theological decisions concerning the church body.

There is a lot of stuff I have chosen not to annotate due to the sheer amount of text alone, but this one is interesting. Before consistory can send a document to the gathering of representatives, it must hear the college of pastors.

All of this can seem a bit complex when trying to understand how all of these different decision-making bodies relate to each other, especially when a person can (and usually is) be a member of these different bodies simultaneously.

I would question here that why can laypeople vote when electing a bishop?

As the bishop is the overseer of other pastors, it would seem fitting to me that only pastors can vote on the issue.

Bishop is the oversee of all congregations in the MD; but as our church body is growing, it's becoming increasingly difficult to overseer about 50 different congregations for one single bishop. I think we should soon have two bishops or change the overseer system.

If we got two bishops, then which would be the chairman in various organizational tasks? I'm not sure.

Chapter 7 is about the office of the Bishop, here it says that the bishop is to ordain new pastors. We don't hold that ONLY a bishop could ordain pastors, but again, for the sake of order and unity, and continuation of the Finnish-Lutheran tradition, the bishop is the one who ordains.

"The doctrine and confession mentioned in the first part can't be changed."

More assuring that this whole church body would need to be torn apart before things like "female pastors" could come forth. But because history shows that things can be "reinterpreted" I would use even stronger, clearer language in some parts for the sake of the future generations.

In doctrinal and theological questions the consistory HAS TO BE heard! This all shows that the administration is very tightly tied together, anchored in many different places to avoid heresies from coming forth.

This helps church planting and pastors, because the unity of the church is upheld by a very high order. You don't have to again fly solo, be afraid if problems you can't fix come up in a congregation etc.

Though I would question whether the consistory or the gathering of representatives should be the highest authority, wouldn't it be better for the best, trained theologians to have the ulimate final say?

This says directly that the highest authority (apart from Scriptures and Confessions) is the gathering of representatives and pastors, however the chairman/president of the gathering (I lack a better word for this) is always the bishop, so his importance and influence can be seen there.

Though every member has one vote, in some sort of a democratic system.

Congregations are obligated to take care of finances of other congregations if needed. As the reader can see, this is very far away from congregations flying solo, no, the congregation that does well is obligated to aid newer or smaller ones which are in deficit.

Is this a good thing? In my opinion it is, for this secures / helps create new congregation more rapidly with less financial stress in the beginning.

This section on the requirements for a congregation to join MD is interesting. Fairly basic stuff about having a congregation, adhering to this document, having a pastor, but the 2. part is interesting.

The 2nd part reads: "The congregation must regularly gather in Divine Service, which is in accordance with Lutheran doctrine and traditional liturgy." This would interestingly mean that congregations which have CoWo wouldn't be allowed to be part of MD. Also what traditional liturgy means, I assume is related to the older liturgical practices from the Finnish state church.

But here it is mentioned that the responsibility of spiritual-theological things is on the bishop, whom has the consistory to help him.

It would seem that there is some tension here and questions of theological nature can overlap with administrational ones, I mean that these are hard to keep separate sometimes, so who wields the ultimate, last, final authority (except the Scriptures)? Is it the "Hiippakuntakokous" (Collection of representatives and pastors), the bishop or the consistery?

Though here it is mentioned that congregation representatives and pastors create the highest form of authority

To a congregationalist in the US, this part may seem weird. It states that the MD examines pastor (usually candidates), not the congregations themselves. Even though the congregation does the final call, this seems to be very "top" focused when it comes to order. Of course when the consistory stays confessional, it works.

It's interesting how here it's noted that MD's mission is to create (not sure if that's a suitable word here) congregations, and support them, their pastors and members. After this follows a longer list of how it's done and for what, but the main point remains that MD is very much in the "business" of church planting, constantly seeking to create new congregations and spread across Finland. This is extremely clear in her mission statement.

This part talks about things of adiaphora and how in things not commanded in Scripture directly, for the sake of order we should result to this document when disputations arise. For an example having a bishop is a matter of adiaphora, but the document here "commands" it, thus the congregations wanting to be in unity have to accept it.

Someone could get upset about the fact that things of adiaphora are commanded so strictly here, but for the sake of unity and order, I myself see it as fitting, as long as it doesn't go against clear words of the Holy Scriptures.

For church planting, being a pastor in new MD. church it's important to know these things

This means that "Mission Diocese is a Lutheran church in Finland", which is correct, but for some Finns a bit controversial because the state church exists and that is perceived to be "the church", but here our church identifies herself with the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church!

I wanted to annotate this part for the fact that it mentions that this document, which seeks to preserve order and peace between congregations, exists because original sin (perisynti in Finnish) exists in people in congregations. I didn't expect a foundational document to be this kind of theological.

This means that every congregation and employee of the Mission Diocese is bound to adhere to this document. However question remains, what does it mean for "congregations to adhere" to this document, does it mean that it's pastor only has to adhere to it, or every single member, or the congregation's board?