Finland’s only communion wafer baker produces nearly one million wafers annually

Finland’s sole artisan maker of communion wafers, known as öylätit, produces nearly one million wafers each year by hand at Helsinki’s Diakonissalaitos, reports Finnish public broadcaster Yle. The recipe—just wheat flour and water—has remained unchanged for a century.

The small bakery in Helsinki’s Kallio district, operated by baker Pia Greus, produces around 800,000 wafers annually for Finland’s Evangelical Lutheran parishes. Each wafer is stamped with a crucifix design, prioritising appearance over taste. “The flavour is guaranteed to be bland—these are meant for the soul, not the palate,” Greus explains.

The wafers are baked in a specialised German-made press, its upper plate engraved with a crucifix pattern designed by artist Ebba Masalin (1873–1942). Before baking, the steel plate is lightly coated with beeswax, and a measured dose of loose batter is poured in. The press then flattens the batter into paper-thin sheets in under a minute.

While still plain wafers in the bakery, they gain sacred significance only during communion. “Visitors sometimes hesitate to taste them, associating them with the Eucharist,” says Sari Enkkelä, client relations manager at Diakonissalaitos. “But here, they’re just bread.”

The tradition began in 1926 under Aino Miettinen, a pioneer in Finnish disability care, who introduced the practice after observing similar production in other Nordic diakonissa institutions. The first batch of 20,000 wafers was supplied to the Finnish Defence Forces. Today, the wafers serve Lutheran congregations nationwide.

The word öylätti derives from the Latin oblatum, meaning “offering.” Beyond the crucifix, wheat itself holds symbolic weight. “Some communion wafers bear only a cross, others none at all,” Enkkelä notes. “But wheat is always central.”