Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church
The Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church (Estonian: Eesti Apostlik-Õigeusu Kirik; EOC) is an Orthodox church in Estonia under the direct jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople. Under Estonian law it is the legal successor to the pre–World War II Estonian Orthodox Church, which in 1940 had over 210,000 faithful, three bishops, 156 parishes, 131 priests, 19 deacons, two monasteries, and a theological seminary; the majority of the faithful were ethnic Estonians. Its official name is the Orthodox Church of Estonia.
The current primate of the church is Stephanos, Metropolitan of Tallinn and all Estonia, elected in 1999.
History
Little is known about the history of the church in the area until the 17th and 18th centuries, when many
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In the 18th and 19th centuries, Estonia was a part of the Russian Empire. In the 1850s a rumour spread that the Orthodox Church promised to provide everybody who converted to Orthodoxy a piece of land of their own somewhere in Russia. Some 65,000 Estonian peasants were converted to the Orthodox faith in the hope of obtaining land, and numerous Orthodox churches were built.[3] Later, when the rumour turned out to be a hoax, a great part of the new Orthodox peasants returned to the Lutheran Church.
In the late 19th century, a wave of
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Autonomy under the Moscow Patriarchate
After the
Prior to this,
and the Estonian clergy lost contact with the Moscow Patriarchate.Transfer to the Ecumenical Patriarchate
In September 1922 the Council of the Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church petitioned the Patriarch of Constantinople,
Before 1941, one-fifth of the total Estonian population (who had been mostly
World War II
In 1940, Estonia was occupied by the Soviet Union, whose government undertook a general programme of the dissolution of all ecclesiastical independence within its territory. From 1942 to 1944, however, autonomy under Constantinople was temporarily revived. In 1945, a representative of the Moscow Patriarchate dismissed the members of the OCE synod who had remained in Estonia and established a new organisation, the Diocesan Council. Orthodox believers in occupied Estonia were thus subordinated to being a diocese within the Russian Orthodox Church.
Just before the second Soviet occupation in 1944 and the dissolution of the Estonian synod, the primate of the church, Metropolitan Aleksander, went into exile along with 21 clergymen and about 8,000 Orthodox believers. The Orthodox Church of Estonia in Exile with its synod in Sweden continued its activity according to the canonical statutes, until the restoration of Estonian independence in 1991. Before he died in 1953, Metr. Aleksander established his community as an exarchate under Constantinople. Most of the other bishops and clergy who remained behind were deported to Siberia. In 1958, a new synod was established in exile, and the church was organized from Sweden.
Inactive
In 1978, at the urging of the Moscow Patriarchate, the Ecumenical Patriarch declared the charter (tomos) of the Church as granted in 1923, inoperative. The church ceased to exist until the breakup of the Soviet Union, when divisions within the Orthodox community in Estonia arose between those who claimed that the Moscow Patriarchate has no jurisdiction in Estonia and those who wished to return to the jurisdiction of Moscow. The dispute often took place along ethnic lines, as many Russians had immigrated to Estonia during the Soviet occupation. Lengthy negotiations between the two patriarchates failed to produce any agreement.
Reactivation
In 1993, the synod of the Orthodox Church of Estonia in Exile was re-registered as the legal successor of the autonomous Orthodox Church of Estonia, and on February 20, 1996, the
In this difficult situation, the Orthodox Church of Estonia received help and support from the
An agreement was reached in which local congregations could choose which jurisdiction to follow. The Orthodox community in Estonia, which accounts for 16.15% of the total population,[11] remains divided, with the majority of faithful (mostly ethnic Russians) remaining under the Russian Orthodox Church. From a U.S. Department of State report released in November 2003, about 20,000 believers (mostly ethnic Estonians) in 60 parishes are part of the church under Constantinople, with 150,000 faithful in 31 parishes, along with the monastic community of Pühtitsa, under the Russian Orthodox Church.[1]
In 1999, the church received a resident hierarch, Metropolitan Stephanos (Charalambides) of Tallinn, formerly an auxiliary bishop under the Ecumenical Patriarchate's Metropolitan of France.
See also
References
- ^ a b International Religious Freedom Report 2003
- ^ US State Dept 2022 report
- ^ "Eesti Apostlik-Õigeusu Kirik, Ajalugu (=History) (In Estonian)" (www.eaok.ee)
- ^ a b Toom, Tarmo. "Estonia, Orthodox Church in", The Encyclopedia of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, p.226-8, Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, 2011.
- Estonian Orthodox Church of Moscow Patriarchatewebsite.
- ^ Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich. "The Attitude of the Workers' Party to Religion", Proletary, No.45, May 13 (26), 1909.
- ^ Pospielovsky, Dimitry V. The Russian Church Under the Soviet Regime, 1917–1983, ch.2, St Vladimir's Seminary Press, Crestwood NY, 1984.
- ^ "Glorification of St Tikhon, the Apostle to America", Orthodox Church in America website.
- ^ Ringvee, Ringo. "History of the controversy", Estonica – Encyclopedia about Estonia, Estonian Institute.
- ^ Metropolitan Johannes:"Viron ortodoksisen Kirkon tie uuteen itsenäisyyteen" Aamun Koitto Number 19/2007 p.18-20
- ^ "PC0454: AT LEAST 15-YEAR-OLD PERSONS BY RELIGION, SEX, AGE GROUP, ETHNIC NATIONALITY AND COUNTY, 31 DECEMBER 2011". Statistics Estonia. 31 December 2011. Retrieved 9 January 2014.
Sources
- Blackwell Dictionary of Eastern Christianity, pp. 183–4
- The Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church by Ronald Roberson, a Roman Catholic priest and scholar.
External links
- Former official website of the Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church
- Current official website of the Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church
- Estonian Orthodox Church of Moscow Patriarchate Archived 2018-05-04 at the Wayback Machine
- The History Files Churches of Estonia
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