Brief History
St. Ursula Church is the name given to a parish church belonging to the Diocese of Helsinki. The church is located in Kouvola, a city in Southeastern Finland and is dedicated to St. Ursula Ledóchowska,
The parish started as a chapel in a three-room apartment in Kouvola on March 9, 1985. The first priest was Father Jan Aarts SCJ. He was followed by Father Wieslaw Swiech SCJ on September 1st 1989.
In 1991 the construction of the current church began. It was partly carried out with the generous help of German Catholics. The church was designed by architect Benito Casagrande and was completed and inaugurated on December 11, 1993.
From September 1, 1994, the Parish priest was father Stanislaw Szymajda SCJ, who looked after our Catholic community until his retirement in 2017. Father Jean Claude Kabeza took over at that time and was Parish priest until September 2019, when Father Tuomas Nyyssölä was named to that office.
The parish is made up of almost 700 members from more than 20 countries, making it an international community of Catholics sharing the common faith.