Ibruktagandet av Lutherkyrkan i Helsingfors som en sakraliseringspraktik

This article discusses the re-inauguration of the Luther Church Helsinki in 2016. Since the 1990s, the church— dedicated in the 1930s—has served alternately as a nightclub and a restaurant, before it was restored to its original purpose. The article suggests that the re-inauguration of the church in 2016 can be regarded as an act of sacralization, aimed at re-sacralizing the church building. Referring to scholars such as G. U. Gumbrecht and Karl-Siegbert Rehberg—according to whom symbols and signs that create the presence of something absent are especially important for the creation and legitimation of institutions—the article proposes that the inauguration of the Luther church served to point to the presence of God in the church building, thus sacralizing it.