Lars Levi Laestadius (1800-1861)

Lars Levi Læstadius (October 1, 1800 - February 21, 1861) was a Swedish Lutheran pastor of Sami ancestry. From the mid 1840's and onward he became the leader of the Laestadian movement. He was also an author, teetotaller and botanist.

Laestadius was born near Arjeplog, Northern Sweden. His father provided for the family by hunting, fishing, and tar-making. The family lived in poverty, but with help from a half-brother who was a pastor at Kvikkjok, Lars Levi was able to enter the University of Uppsala in 1820 where he proved to be a brilliant student. Because of his interest in botany he was made assistant in the Botany Department while pursuing studies in theology. He was ordained a Lutheran minister in 1825 by the bishop in Halmstad, Erik Abraham Almquist. His first parish was at Arjeplog where he became regional missionary for the Pite district. From 1826 to 1849 he was vicar in Karesuando parish, and subsequently served the Pajala parish from 1849 until his death. Before moving to Karesuando, he married a local Sami woman, Brita Cajsa Alstadius, and together they raised a family of twelve children.

In addition to his pastoral duties he continued his interest in botany, and authored a number of articles on plant life in Samiland. He also served as botanist to a French research expedition to Samiland (1838-40). On the request from the expedition, he also wrote a lengthy piece on Sami mythology. This was not published in the expedition papers, and for many years his manuscript was lost. The final part of the manuscript was discovered as late as in 2001.

At the time of Laestadius' arrival, Karesuando was a place with widespread misery and alcoholism. Laestadius' mother tongue was Swedish but he also spoke the Lule dialect of the Sami language. After a year in Karesuando he spoke both Finnish and the local Sami dialect. He usually held his sermons in Finnish since it was the most widespread language in the area, but on occasions also preached in the Sami and Swedish languages.

Around 1833 he suffered from a complaint which the doctors first thought was pneumonia. He did however recover.

He applied for the deanery in Pajala. In order to get the position he needed to complement his exams in Härnösand, which he did and in 1849 he became dean in Pajala and visitor over the Laponian parishes.

The resistance to Laestadius' radical christian ethics and morale, together with his way to confront the parishioners to their sins was bigger in Pajala and the bishop decided in 1853 that two church services should be held in Pajala, one for the laestadians and one for the others. This could be said to be the moment when laestadianism became a movement in its own right, although it remained within and never separated from the Church of Sweden. Laestadius died in 1861 and was succeeded by Johan Raatamaa as the leader of the laestadian movement.

Botany

Laestadius undertook his first botanic trip already as a student. Later the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences paid him to travel to Scania and Laponia in order to study and make drawings of the plants, which should be used in work over Swedish botany. He was as an internationally recognised botanist and was a member of the Edinburgh Botanical Society as well as the Royal Swedish Society of Sciences in Uppsala.

Lars Levi Læstadius has given name to four flowers:

• Salix laestadiana
• Carex laestadii
• Papaver laestadianum
• Arnica alpina laest