The article, drawing partly on unpublished archival documents, considers causes and directions of the impact of the Evangelical Lutheran Church on the formation of the Ingrian Finnish ethnic identity in the St. Petersburg province of the Russian Empire in the nineteenth century. The 1832 Charter of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Russia became the basic legal document defining its particular goals and responsibilities before the secular authorities. One of the main ideas was to strengthen the role of Lutheranism in the life of the Finnish peasants.