by
Vlasios Phidas, Professor of the University (Athens)(1)
The Autonomous Church of Estonia is an important historical
witness of Orthodoxy’s presence in the Baltic Lands in the second
millennium of the church’s historical existence; and it belongs
to the community of Autocephalous and Autonomous Orthodox Churches.
The Church of Estonia was proclaimed Autonomous by the ecumenical
Patriarchate with the issue of the customary Patriarchal Tome,
in 1923. After a protracted period of persecutions and others
vicissitudes, the Orthodox Church of Estonia now gained its
ecclesiastical autonomy and its internal self-reliance.
The spread of Christianity into Estonia was related to the activities
of the Byzantine mission to Russia in the late tenth and early
eleventh century. We learn from the Russian «Chronicle of Novgorod»
that the Great Prince (velikii kniaz) of Kiev, Yaroslav the
Wise (1015-1054), built two orthodox churches in the town of
Yurev (the later Dorpat and Tartu). This town was to be the
centre of the mission to Estonia, and it became a bishopric
of the metropolitan see of Kiev and All Russia. Several bishops
of Yerev arc mentioned in the eleventh and twelfth century Russian
sources: they include Michael (1072-1073), Antony (1089), Marin
(1091-1095), Daniel (1113-1122), Damian (1147), Nikephoros (1185)
and Adrian (1197-1198). This is proof of the continuity of church
life in the region roundabout, up to the middle of the thirteenth
century. The Byzantine metropolitan bishops of Kiev and All
Russia were completely responsible for organizing missionary
work in the see of Yuriev.
When the Russian princedoms became subject to the Golden Hordo
of the Mongols (1240), their unity weakened, and so did that
of their bishoprics. Already in 1217 the Teutonic Knights, crusaders
from Germany in league with the Danes, had overrun Estonia and
Latvia. The conquerors outlawed the Orthodox creed and form
of worship, and tried to impose Roman Catholicism by main force.
When the Orthodox clung staunchly to their traditions, there
were harsh persecutions in which many clergy and ordinary laypeople
went to their martyrdoms. This was the situation until the early
sixteenth century, underpinned by the Roman Catholic Kings of
Poland and Lithuania. When the Livonian Alliance broke up, the
northern part of Estonia passed into Swedish hands and the south
into Polish hands: after the first war between Poland and Sweden,
however, the Swedes, by the Treaty of Altmark in 1629, extended
their control over the whole of Estonia.
Under Swedish rule (1661-1721) Lutheranism was systematically
introduced into Estonia. King Gustavus Adolphus II of Sweden
founded the University of Dorpat (now Tartu) in 1632 and encouraged
both Roman Catholics and Orthodox to become Lutherans. After
the Russo-Swedish wars of 1700-1721, however, Estonia was ceded
to Russia, by the Treaty of Nystad in 1721; but Russia granted
important privileges to the German barons of the Baltic Lands,
up to the early nineteenth century. These historical vicissitudes
in Estonia were distressing to the Orthodox, who were put under
intolerable pressure by their Catholic or Lutheran conquerors
to desert the Orthodox creed. When Estonia was annexed to Russia
in 1721, the local Orthodox Church was small minority in a Lutheran
land.
During Russian rule (1721-1918), the Orthodox Church of Estonia
reconstituted itself and developed to an impressive degree.
The see of Rihkva was the leading church centre, where the work
of organizing Orthodox communities into parishes was co-ordinated.
A Theological Seminary was founded at Riga in 1848. This was
operative until the First World War, closing in 1915, and it
provided not only the clergy but Estonian public life with important
figures. The see of Riga was founded in 1850, and became the
Estonian church’s ecclesiastical and spiritual centre. Students
at the Theological Seminary included Estonia’s first president,
K. Päts; and the first Estonian bishop of Estonian church, Plato
bishop of Tallinn (1917-1919), who was slaughtered by the Russian
Communists and is honoured as a martyr. Russian rule ended after
the Estonians’ War of National Liberation (1917-1919), crowned
with the Peace Treaty of Tartu (1920) whereby Estonia won her
complete freedom and became an independent state.
Political independence from Russia also increased the tendency
among the Orthodox towards ecclesiastical independence from
the re-established Patriarcate of Moscow. The first General
Assembly of the Estonian Orthodox Church (March 1918) chose
a graduate of the Riga Seminary, Alexander, as archbishop of
Estonia. Relations between the Orthodox Church of Estonia and
Patriarcate of Moscow were broken off, in particular with the
imprisonment of Tychon, Patriarch of Moscow, by the Bolsheviks.
At the Second General Assembly of the Estonian Orthodox Church
(June 1922) it was decided to seek Autocephalous status from
the ecumenical Patriarcate, and the imprisoned Patriarch of
Moscow, Tikhon, gave his assent to this. The Patriarcate made
the Church of Estonia Autocephalous by Patriarchal Tome, in
1923, and declared archbishop Alexander metropolitan bishop
of Estonia.
The Estonian Orthodox Church now numbered some 250,000 believers
and represented some 20% of the country’s population. Of the
Orthodox, 85 to 90% were Estonians, and 15 to 10% were Russians.
The Church of Estonia had three sees, a hundred and forty seven
parishes, three monasteries, and other foundations spiritual;
but it also exerted great influence in the country’s public
affairs and intellectual life. Estonia’s president, and intermittently
prime minister, K. Päts (1917-1940), was Orthodox, and so the
government ministers and top potholders in the machine of state.
The diocese of the Estonian Orthodox Church was ratified by
a Charter of Incorporation (Law 129/1926), which was modified
and added to, taking its final form in 1935. This Charter was
in force until 1945, when Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were
annexed to the Soviet Union.
The Patriarcate of Moscow hastened to appoint archbishop Sergey,
a Russian, as metropolitan of Vilnius and exarch of Latvia and
Estonia, riding roughshod over the Church of Estonia’s autonomous
status and Charter even before Soviet control of the country
was complete. During a brief period of German occupation of
Estonia (1941-1944), secured by the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
of 1940, the Russian exarches Sergey interfered arbitrarily
in the internal affairs of the Estonian Church, causing a breach
between Estonian and Russian Orthodox. The see of Narva, where
the great majority of Orthodox were Russians, broke away from
the diocese of the Church of Estonia to recognize the authority
of the exarches from the Moscow Patriarcate.
The Soviet Army finally conquered Estonia in 1944. The result
was the violent suppression of the Estonian church’s autonomy.
Alexander, the metropolitan bishop of Estonia, was compelled,
along with twenty-two of his clergy and eight thousand believers,
to take refuge in Sweden (1944). Here he organized a Holy Synod
from beyond the national frontiers in order to provide pastoral
care in exile, for his sorely tried flock in Estonia. The Estonian
Church was reorganized as a see under the jurisdiction of the
Patriarchate of Moscow, with its seat at Tallinn, and its autonomy
was arbitrarily abolished (in March 1945). The bishop of Tallinn
and All Estonia was now elected by the Holy Synod of the Moscow
Patriarchate, and adopted for the administration of his church
the latter’s Charter of Incorporation. The Russian language
was made compulsory in all parish services. Persecution of Christians
by the Communist regime, expropriation of Church property, closure
of monasteries and ecclesiastical seminaries, and a ban on church
publications: all these were applied with particular severity
in Estonia so as to crush any resistance. Estonians were also
banished, Russians were settled en masse, and so on.
The ecumenical Patriarchate and other Orthodox Churches refused
to acknowledge these one-sided actions by the Patriarchate of
Moscow, while recognizing the Holy Synod of the metropolitan
Alexander in exile as canonical. When Alexander died in 1953,
the ecumenical Patriarchate appointed a warden for the Estonian
Church: Athenagoras, archbishop of Thyatira. After the death
of the successor of Alexander, Georgios (1951-1961), the person
appointed was the new bishop of Thyatira, Jacob (1961-1970).
Consequently, there were during the Soviet period (1945-1991)
two simultaneous de facto authorities in the Church of Estonia,
one — the ecumenical Patriarchate — respecting the church’s
autonomy, and the other — the Moscow Patriarchate — suppressing
it. This made for fiction in inter-Orthodox relations about
such a canonical irregularity. Moreover, the mass settlement
of Russians in Estonia had cut back the numerical superiority
of the Estonian Orthodox, especially during the tenure of the
see of Estonia and All Estonia by Alexis Ridiger (1960-1990),
who was in 1990 to become Patriarch of Russia.
The break-up of the Soviet Union put an end to Soviet occupation
of Estonia. The country regained its freedom and became an independent
state. With political independence the question of the administrative
regime of the Estonian church returned to the forefront. Legislation
to register the country’s religious organizations (20.5.1993)
showed up the Estonian church’s administrative irregularity.
The parishes of the Estonian Orthodox asked to be registered
according to the 1935 Charter, in other words under the regime
of the Autonomous Orthodox Church (19.6.1993), now also recognized
by the Patriarchate of Moscow (27.4.1993). The Estonian Ministry
for Internal Affairs accepted this demand by the Estonian parishes,
and proceeded to register the Autonomous Church of Estonia (14.9.1993).
However, the Russian bishop of Tallinn submitted a second demand
(5.11.1993) with the same content; but the Estonian government
rejected this on the grounds that the see of Tallinn and All
Estonia were founded only in 1945 and had never accepted the
1935 Charter. The Assembly of Estonian Orthodox Parishes asked
the ecumenical Patriarchate to confirm the autonomy of the Estonian
Church and to restore its diocesan organization. Despite objections
from the Patriarchate of Moscow, the ecumenical Patriarchate
did restore the Estonian Orthodox church’s autonomy (20.2.1996),
and it elected bishop Stephen as metropolitan of Estonia. But
there still remains the problem of the two parallel jurisdictions:
one for the Estonian Orthodox parishes, and one for the Russian
Orthodox parishes.
The Estonian Orthodox church’s historical vicissitudes have
left indelible marks on the spiritual life of its people. The
spiritual blooming of the period of independence (1923-1944)
was undermined during the period of Soviet rule (1945-1991),
not simply by the regime’s policy of oppression, but by the
split between Estonian and Russian Orthodox parishes as well.
The mass flight of Estonian Orthodox and the mass settlement
of Russians in Estonia altered the balance of the church’s flock,
to such an extent that Russian believers are now in the majority
over Estonians, even though in 1941 they were no more than 10
% to 15 % of the Orthodox in Estonia. The jurisdiction problem
must be immediately dealt with, if the Autonomous Church of
Estonia is to be reconstituted so as to assist self-propelled
development of the spiritual life in a strongly Lutheran environment.
The combination of the ecumenical Patriarcate’s traditions with
the special features of Russian spirituality provides a reliable
and well-tried method of renewing the Estonian Orthodox church’s
spiritual life.
NOTES
1.-
Published in the Collective work THE SPLENDOUR OF ORTHODOXY-2000
YEARS (History-Monuments-Art), vol. 2, The Glory of Grandeur
of Christian Orthodoxy, Athens, by the Editions “Ekdotike Athenon”,
2000, p. 516-518 [English edition].
