During the 1870s, the revival movement gained an established place in Kuusamo. The earliest local preachers were Juho Takkinen and Matti Kellinsalmi from Posio and Tobias Kaivola and Sihveri Suoraniemi from Kuusamo. One preacher who visited Kuusamo during the early Laestadian period was Juhani Raattamaa, the most famous layman of the revival movement. He visited Kuusamo three times in the 1880s. Kaarle Helisten from Kemijärvi went on conventicle trips in Kuusamo fairly regularly for thirty-five years. Laestadianism expanded in the Kuusamo area so that at the beginning of the 20th century it is considered to have included half of the population of the parish. At that time, the population was almost 9 000 people.
In the beginning, devotional conventicles were mainly held in homes. The church town also had a public building, the community hall, as a meeting place. As the number of conventicle members increased, it was deemed necessary to build a separate Meeting House. It was completed in 1912 and was located at the current address Kitkantie 23.
Since there was no heating in the church, the new Meeting House was also used in the winter as a venue for church services until 1935, when heating was added to the church, which was burned later in the war.
The conservative movement of Laestadianism organizes its activities through local Association of Peace. The Kuusamo Association of Peace was only founded on October 1st, 1935. The first established Association of Peace included the entire area of Kuusamo. Especially after the last wars, Associations of Peace were founded in Kuusamo also in the villages, so that there has been a total of 25 individual associations in the municipality’s territory at different times. Today there are six of them.
The association’s Meeting House, completed in 1912, was used by the army during both the Winter and Continuation Wars, and it was completely destroyed in September 1944 when the church town burned down. The new one was completed in 1948 at the address Joukamontie 20. The house was rented to the municipality as school premises over the mid-1950s and then as a courtroom until 1964. After the house in question became cramped, the current building was built in Lahdentaus.
In Kuusamo, summer conventicles for the Conservative Laestadianism have been organized twice. The first ones were organized near the church in 1961, and the second in Määttälänvaara in 1985. The annual summer conventicles, currently with around 80 000 participants between June and July, are the revival movement’s most visible event.
The Conservative Laestadianism emphasizes the importance of the Bible and spirituality according to the principles of the Reformation. According to the teachings of the revival movement, the revelation of the Bible cannot be changed when social conditions and people’s lifestyles change. Because of this, the movement is considered “conservative” and the lifestyle of those who belong to the movement is even seen as unusual nowadays. Within the movement, the methods of operation have remained very traditional and simple: devotional conventicles and Sunday schools are organized, youth work is done, and diaconia is practiced. Teaching also includes the promotion of public sobriety and patriotic spirit.
