Lars Levi Laestadius (10 January 1800 – 21 February 1861) was a
Swedish Sami pastor and administrator of the
Swedish state Lutheran church in
Lapland who founded the
Laestadian pietist revival movement to help his largely Sami congregations, who were being ravaged by alcoholism. Laestadius was also a noted
botanist and an author. Laestadius himself became a
teetotaller (except for his ongoing use of wine in holy
Communion) in the 1840s, when he began successfully awakening his Sami parishioners to the misery and destruction alcohol was causing them.