Some 100,000 people have used the internet to leave the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland. The website, eroakirkosta.fi, allows people who belong to the Church to give up their membership. Administrators of the website said that the number of people who used the site to leave the Church reached 100,000 on Sunday afternoon. The service has been active for four years. During that time, it has become a popular channel for Finns who wish to renounce their membership and avoid paying church taxes. The Evangelical Lutheran Church and the Greek Orthodox Church are both state-supported in Finland. According to Statistics Finland, 82.5 percent of the population were members of the Lutheran Church in 2006. That is down from 87.9 percent in 1990. Orthodox Church membership has remained steady at just over one percent. YLE
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