Vederlax

Vederlax, or Virolahti, lies on the northern shore of the Gulf of Finland. Its fishing waters and sheltered bays sustained a medieval trading place, mentioned in 1336 when merchants from Tallinn received trading rights here. The parish was recorded by 1370, and its people sailed across the gulf to sell fish, especially sought after during the Catholic fasts. The exchange joined the Finnish coast to the merchants and markets of the southern Baltic.

The Treaty of Nystad divided the parish in 1721: its southeastern lands passed to Russia, while the church and parsonage remained just inside Sweden. The Treaty of Åbo brought the remaining parish under Russian rule in 1743. A new wooden church was completed in 1766 beside the older church site and its early sixteenth-century stone sacristy.