in
Tallinn, built at the end of the 19th century.
Orthodoxy was most likely first introduced in the 10th through 12th centuries by missionaries from
Novgorod and
Pskov active among the
Estonians in the southeast regions of the area close to Pskov. The first mention of an Orthodox congregation in Estonia dates from 1030. Around 600 AD on the east side of Toome Hill (Toomemägi) the Estonians established the town Tarbatu (modern
Tartu). In 1030, the Kievan prince,
Yaroslav the Wise, raided Tarbatu and built his own fort called Yuryev, as well as, allegedly, a congregation in a cathedral dedicated to his patron saint,
St. George. The congregation may have survived until 1061, when, according to chronicles, Yuryev was burned to the ground and the Orthodox Christians expelled. As a result of the
Baltic Crusades in the beginning of the 13th century, northern Estonia was conquered by
Denmark and the southern part of the country by the
Teutonic Order and later by the
Livonian Brothers of the Sword, and thus all of present-day Estonia fell under the control of
Western Christianity. However, Russian merchants from
Novgorod and
Pskov were later able to set up small Orthodox congregations in several Estonian towns. Little is known about the history of the church in the area until the 17th and 18th centuries, when many
Old Believers fled there from Russia to avoid the
liturgical reforms introduced by
Patriarch Nikon of the Russian Orthodox Church. In the 18th and 19th centuries, Estonia was part of the
Imperial Russian Empire, having been
ceded by the
Swedish Empire in 1721 following its defeat in the
Great Northern War. During the 1800s, a significant number of Estonian peasants converted to the emperor's Orthodox faith in the (unfulfilled) hope of being rewarded with land. This led to the establishment of the
diocese of
Riga (in modern
Latvia) by the
Russian Orthodox Church in 1850. In 1917 a
plenary council chose
Paul Kulbusch, a priest of the
St. Petersburg Estonian Orthodox community, to become
Bishop Platon of Tallinn. A staunch advocate of independence, he was executed two years later by the
Red Army during the
Estonian War of Independence. In response, Patriarch Tikhon had
excommunicated the Soviet leadership in 1918, leading to a period of
intense persecution of the
Russian Orthodox Church. In April 1922, Tikhon was imprisoned, and the Estonian clergy lost contact with the Moscow Patriarchate. In September 1922 the Council of the Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church petitioned the Patriarch of Constantinople,
Meletius IV, to (1) transfer control of the Estonian church from the Russian Orthodox Church to the
Patriarchate of Constantinople, and (2) clarify the Estonian church's canonical status. In 1923 the Patriarchate of Constantinople issued a
tomos (ecclesiastical edict) which brought the EAOC under Constantinople's jurisdiction and granted it
autonomy, but not full
autocephaly. In 1935 the church legally registered its statute with the state under the name
Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church. This would have important legal ramifications later. The Estonian church remained a subject of the Constantinople Patriarchate until
World War II. By that time, roughly one fifth of the total Estonian population were Orthodox Christians, including
Konstantin Päts, Estonia's first
President. There were over 210,000 adherents (mostly ethnic Estonians), three bishops, 156 parishes, 131 priests, 19 deacons, and a Chair of Orthodoxy in the Faculty of Theology at the
University of Tartu. Notable Orthodox institutions included the
Pskovo-Pechersky Monastery in
Petseri, two
convents—in
Narva and
Kuremäe, a
priory in Tallinn and a
seminary in Petseri.
Soviet occupation In 1940, Estonia became a constituent republic of the
Soviet Union, as part of a secret territory-dividing agreement in the
German–Soviet Nonaggression Pact of August 1939. During the Soviet era, the Estonian church's decision to break with Moscow in favor of Constantinople was ruled illegal. Consequently, the church lost its autonomy and was merged into the Russian Orthodox Church on 28 February 1941. In 1978, at the request of the Russian Orthodox Church, the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople ruled the 1923 autonomy-granting
tomos "inoperable", meaning Constantinople acknowledged the impossibility of an autonomous Orthodox church operating within the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic. The Moscow Patriarchate strongly opposed this ruling. Of particular concern were about 20 churches built before the 1940s, and therefore legally the property of the EAOC, run by the Moscow-led diocese. The Russian diocese continued its campaign to claim legal succession until 2001, when it dropped attempts to register the 1935 statute, and instead applied to the Ministry of Internal Affairs with the name "Estonian Orthodox Church of Moscow Patriarchate". The EAOC protested, saying it was too similar to "Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church". At first, the government sided with the EAOC, who suggested instead names such as the "Russian Orthodox Church in Estonia" or the "Russian Orthodox Church diocese". The Estonian Business Association soon lobbied on behalf of the Moscow Patriarchate, because statements by Russian officials led them to believe a favorable registration would lead to reduced
customs tariffs on Estonian-Russian trade. The effort succeeded, and on 17 April 2002 the Russian diocese was registered as the
Estonian Orthodox Church of Moscow Patriarchate (EOCMP). This did not bring about any of the hoped-for tariff reductions, though.
The church today The Orthodox community in Estonia, which accounts for about 16.5% of the total population as of 2011 and which has become the largest Christian denomination in the country over
Lutheranism for the first time in country's modern history, remains divided, with the majority of faithful (mostly ethnic Russians) remaining under Moscow. As of a government report in 2004, about 20,000 believers (mostly ethnic Estonians) in 54 parishes are part of the
Estonian Apostolic Orthodox autonomous church under Constantinople, while 150,000 faithful in 30 parishes, along with the monastic community of Pühtitsa, are with the Moscow Patriarchate. The issues around property ownership have been mostly settled. In 2002, the EAOC agreed to transfer ownership of churches used by the EOCMP to the state, who in turn would issue 50-year leases on the properties to the EOCMP. In return, the state agreed to renovate EAOC churches. ==See also==