The ground-breaking heavy metal service has been taking place in churches all across Finland.

CAIRO — Heavy metal is the new attraction luring Finish teens and youngsters to churches in the Scandinavian country.

"It's nice that there are slightly different church services compared to the usual ones," Teea Pallaskari, 15, told Agence France Presse (AFP) on Tuesday, September 16.

She and her classmates skip their school classes to make the Metallimessu or Metal Mass in the plain, red-brick Lutheran Church -- the state religion -- in this small town about 60 kilometers north of Helsinki.

At the beginning, the service looks as it follows the normal communion service liturgy.

Then all at once, the band mates plug in the amps, loud electric guitars and bass drums, and the lead singer starts singing the hymns that are arranged in metallic music wildly onstage.

Down the stage, the faithful, mostly teens and youngsters, are seen squashing together on packed pews, as they sing out the hymns along with the band.

When the music stops, the students burst into ecstatic applause and whistles.

"It was really good," said Akseli Inkinen, a 17-year-old high school student, after a metal mass band finished performing in the Lutheran Church of Maentsaelae, a small town north of Helsinki.

Heavy metal is the reason why he is now keen to attend the church mass.

The first Metal Mass was held in Finland, where this type of music is now mainstream, in 2006.

Since then, the ground-breaking service has been taking place in churches nationwide.

Change

At the beginning, not everyone was happy with the church and heavy metal mix.

Mikko Saari, a co-founder of Metallimessu, admits they faced a lot of skepticism.

"Of course some Christian circles were scared and some true metal people were irate," he told AFP.

"But many said that the idea was great and that they had been waiting for it."

"For me, metal mass was a surprise," said Kimmo Kuusniemi, one of Finland's metal music pioneers who is producing a documentary about Finnish metal music.

"Metal music and church did not fit in the same room."

Some churchgoers feel loud rock music has no place in a house of God, and some pure metal fans accuse the Lutheran Church of co-opting their music to lure young people.

"This is not the Church's plan. Bishops did not plan this. It was started by five metal fans, three of whom worked at a church," insists Saari.

"Finns are known to be reserved, serious and very honest.

"Somehow heavy metal fits into this as it is no-nonsense, honest, straightforward and quite gloomy."