News- Estonia

The Church Mouse That Roared

The Orthodox faithfull of Estonia choose the path of independence. That decision has precipitated a crisis between Moscow and Constantinople, putting the largest church in the Orthodox world into direct conflict with the Ecumenical Patriarch.

By Lawrence A. Uzzell

In 1918 the Orthodox Bishop Platon of Tallinn encouraged his flock to cooperate with the underground government of independent Estonia rather than with the German occupation authorities or the Russian Bolsheviks. Murdered by pro-Bolshevik Estonians, he is now revered as a martyr by Estonian Orthodox Christians.

On February 24, 1996, a semi-circle of Greek, Finnish, Estonian, and Russian clergymen gathered around Bishop Platon's ornate tomb in Tallinn's Church of the Transfiguration for a short memorial service. A few minutes earlier they had defied the Orthodox patriarchate of Moscow by formally proclaiming the restoration of the Ecumenical Patriarch's jurisdiction over the Estonian Orthodox Church. The Estonian church had turned to Constantinople, declaring its independence from Moscow.

Not long ago the Moscow patriarchate's hold on the Estonian church seemed unbreakable. Constantinople's jurisdiction had begun only after Platon's death--and after two centuries in which Estonia had been part of the Russian empire. The Soviet occupation of the 1940s brought the Estonian Orthodox back under Moscow's control, except for a handful of parishes which managed to establish themselves abroad as the Stockholm-based "Estonian Church in Exile." At the height of the years of East-West detente, in 1978, Constantinople suspended even its formal claim to spiritual leadership of the increasingly Russified parishes within Estonia. By the 1980s even the parishes in exile were in decline, as larger Orthodox jurisdictions or Western secular culture absorbed the grandchildren of the tiny Estonian diaspora.

Since most ethnic Estonian believers support Constantinople, while most ethnic Russians in Estonia support the Moscow patriarchate, the ecclesiastical conflict has inevitably become entangled with secular political issues of ethnicity, language, national loyalty, and human rights. The Moscow patriarchate still recognizes its own appointee, Archbishop Kornili of Tallinn, as the only canonical bishop in Estonia. The clergy and most of the lay members of several major parishes such as Tallinn's Aleksandr Nevsky Cathedral remain loyal to Kornili. Thus there are now two competing Orthodox entities in Estonia.

NEW LEADERS REJECT HARSH RHETORIC

The interim leaders of Estonia's pro-Constantinople church neither seek nor expect further escalation of their conflict with the patriarchate of Moscow, they revealed in exclusive interviews on February 23 and 24 at their hotel in Tallinn. Archbishop John, head of the Orthodox Church in Finland, and Bishop Ambrosius of the Finnish Orthodox diocese of Joensuu said that they were planning to match neither the Moscow patriarchate's harsh rhetoric--which has included threats of schism--nor its punitive acts--such as excommunication of laymen and suspension of priests who support their opponents.

Archbishop John was formally installed as the "Locum Tenens" or acting head of the pro-Constantinople parishes in a February 24 eremony at Tallinn's Orthodox Church of the Transfiguration. The Finnish primate named Bishop Ambrosius as his assistant; the latter is expected to spend about half his time in Estonia in the near future, concentrating at first on restoring the church's pastoral and educational programmes. "Our goal is for the Estonians to be responsible for their own affairs," said Archbishop John.

Seminarians from Estonia are already studying theology in both Greece and Finland, the archbishop said. He explained that "we used to get complaints all the time" about the Moscow patriarchate's discrimination against ethnic Estonians seeking ordination to the Orthodox priesthood. "I believe that there was a period of several years during which only one ethnic Estonian was ordained," he continued. Such discrimination reportedly continued even in the late 1980s and 1990s, after the Moscow patriarchate and its Tallinn diocese were no longer under pressure from the Soviet or Russian state.

Archbishop John said that the Moscow patriarchate would prefer not to face the reality that the prospects for Orthodox Christian evangelization and church growth among ethnic Estonians are better if the Orthodox Church is not seen in Estonia as a Russian institution. "They understand, but they don't wish to understand" the problem, he said. He noted that the Moscow patriarchate tried to bring Finnish Orthodoxy back under its jurisdiction after World War II, and finally accepted the Finnish church's independence only in the late 1950s. The problem, he said, is that "Moscow lets politics determine its ecclesiastical positions."

After their initial meetings with indigenous pro-Constantinople priests--which included whirlwind visits to parishes in central and southern Estonia--the two Finnish bishops concluded that the election of an Estonian as bishop cannot take place immediately. "The Estonians told us that they don't now have suitable candidates," Archbishop John told us.

Archbishop John's assistant, Bishop Ambrosius, argued that Moscow's threats of schism are "just an effort to intimidate us--but it won't work. The harsher the Russians' rhetoric, the less likely will be real escalation; Moscow has more to lose than we do."

TWO MEN AND A LEGACY

What brought the independent Estonian Orthodox Church back from the brink of extinction was the imagination and tenacity of a church historian and an economist who had lived their entire lives under Soviet occupation within Estonia. These two men, who initially met in a karate class, combined historical and legal research to revive the memory of an indigenous Estonian Orthodox tradition. They crafted a strategy for grafting the most militantly anti-Moscow Estonian parishes back onto what they regarded as the sole legitimate heir of that tradition, the "Stockholm Synod" of the church in exile. They developed an effective alliance with the newly independent Estonian state's Ministry of the Interior, creating a legal mechanism for having their parishes formally recognised as the sole lawful heirs of all property owned by the Estonian Orthodox Church before 1940. They gradually persuaded a majority of Estonia's parishes to join them; they successfully wooed an initially cautious patriarchate of Constantinople; and they finally saw their vision realised in Tallinn's Church of the Transfiguration on February 24, when the visiting Greek bishops installed Archbishop John of Finland as acting head of the Estonian parishes returning to Constantinople's jurisdiction.

Aivar Sarapik, now deacon at the Transfiguration parish, was a spiritual seeker in the 1980s, as were many students in the Soviet Union. He was baptized into Orthodox Christianity in 1984, when he was still a computer-engineering student, after a spiritual odyssey that had taken him through Oriental religions. By 1991 he was director of youth programs for the Estonian diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church; as such he had written authorization from the new patriarch of Moscow (and former Archbishop of Tallinn), Aleksei II, to represent the church in ecumenical gatherings. At the 1991 gathering of the World Council of Churches in Canberra, Australia, he was one of 20 people in the delegation from the Russian Orthodox Church.

The young Estonian approached one of the representatives of the delegation from the Orthodox patriarch of Constantinople and launched what became a two-hour conversation about various issues, including the possibility of restoring Constantinople's pre-1940 jurisdiction over the Estonian Orthodox. The Greek bishop was non-committal, but clearly Sarapik had planted a seed. That same year Sarapik and his friend Henn Tosso, a Tallinn economist, began publishing articles in Estonia on this theme; in the fateful month of August 1991, they created an independent foundation to pursue ties with the "Stockholm Synod."

Tosso, two decades older than Sarapik and a lifelong Orthodox Christian, eventually was delegated formal authority by the exile group in Stockholm to act on its behalf within Estonia. His tiny office on Kaarli Street was a shabby contrast to pro-Moscow Archbishop Kornili's spacious headquarters in the heart of Tallinn's historic Old Town, but had two potent symbols on the wall--an icon and a map showing every Orthodox parish in the country. The two activists lobbied these parishes one by one, asking them to express publicly their desire to affiliate with the "Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church"--the historic name of the pre-1940 structure under Constantinople's jurisdiction.

AN ALLY IN THE GOVERNMENT

The pro-Constantinople group won a key ally in the person of Mari-Anne Heljas, a legal specialist for the small board of religious affairs in Estonia's Ministry of the Interior. When they first met, recalled Tosso,in a February 20 interview, they disagreed: She thought that the charter of the pro-Moscow jurisdiction in Estonia was too centralized and hierarchical, while he at first defended it. Eventually he came to accept her view. She encouraged the pro-Constantinople group to move quickly in registering itself with her ministry in 1993. In this respect she was at odds with some of her senior colleagues--who, Tosso said, "were afraid; they didn't want to offend the Russians."

Heljas told us that registration is not necessary for a religious group to function in Estonia, but that it is important for financial issues such as the privatization of state property. If a religious group claims to be the continuation of a church which existed and owned property in independent Estonia before 1940, then it must register in order to have the state recognisze its claims in the process of returning nationalized land and buildings to their pre-Soviet owners. In the eyes of the law, she said, Archbishop Kornili and his pro-Moscow diocese "cannot lose anything, because the churches were never theirs to begin with;" they were stolen by force under the Soviet occupation. In spite of that logic, she said, the state will not forcibly evict pro-Moscow priests and congregations from the churches which they occupy "because we realize that there is a Russian Orthodox Church with Russian Orthodox believers here."

When Archbishop Kornili sought to have his diocese registered by the Ministry of the Interior under the historic name of the "Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church'"-a name which the pro-Moscow diocese had not used during the Soviet period--Mrs Heljas and her colleagues rejected their application on the grounds that this name had already been taken by the pro-Constantinople parishes represented by Tosso and Sarapik. She invited the Archbishop to seek registration under another name--which would mean forsaking all claim to pre-1940 properties. Archbishop Kornili refused.

If Archbishop Kornili had presented his application before Tosso and Sarapik did, we asked, would Heljas have granted it? Yes, she said--but her ministry still would not have given him legal title to the pre-1940 church properties. "I can legally change my name to Rockefeller," she said, "but that doesn't entitle me to inherit the Rockefellers' money."

The pro-Moscow jurisdiction accused Mrs. Heljas of breaking Estonia's 1993 law on church-state relations to suit her own ecclesiastical and political preferences. Archbishop Kornili's spokesmen cited passages in the law which require a church registered in Estonia to have an "episcopal structure" and an "administration" located within the country. The Stockholm-based exile church, they said, was functioning without either. Heljas replied that the charter filed with her office by the pro-Constantinople jurisdiction clearly included both, and that it is the words of the charter that her office must consider. The pro-Moscow diocese filed suit in a Tallinn court against the Ministry of the Interior, seeking to have Heljas' ruling overturned, but the court ruled in favor of the ministry. So the diocese appealed to a higher court-- again without success.

Sarapik told us that the pro-Constantinople jurisdiction does not dispute the pro- Moscow jurisdiction's legal title to a controversial church in Maardu, standing adjacent to a monument to the Soviet Army, since this building was erected only three years ago and was never owned by the pre-1940 Estonian church.

MOSCOW'S MOVE

That small gesture is certainly not enough for Archbishop Kornili. In an exclusive February 23 interview with Keston News Service, the archbishop revealed that his "next steps will be decided in Moscow." Asked whether he would take any further disciplinary steps such as excommunication against members of his church who defect to the pro-Constantinople jurisdiction, he repeated that the Moscow patriarchate, not he, would make that decision.

Father Leonti Morozkin, the archbishop's press secretary, said that the current crisis in the Orthodox Church is comparable to that of 1054, which led to the schism between Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Christians. He suggested that the conflict might well spread to other countries, making it impossible for example for members of the Orthodox Church in America to receive the Eucharist and other sacraments from Greek Orthodox priests.

Asked to comment on Constantinople's view that the prospects for the health and growth of Orthodox Christianity in Estonia are better if the church is independent from Moscow, Archbishop Kornili replied that the Estonian church "cannot be separated from its mother church." He said that Constantinople's decision to take the Estonian church under its wing was unjustified because it was taken "unilaterally," without Moscow's consent. The Archbishop rejected a suggestion that Moscow itself had acted unilaterally in 1945, when it brought Estonian Orthodox back under its own control during the Soviet occupation.

What happened in the 1940s, Father Leonti elaborated in a separate interview, was "not an occupation" because "the Estonian parliament voluntarily requested it." He added, "I refuse to talk to people who call me an occupier."

But now that Estonia is an independent state again, should it not have an independent church? Father Leonti replied that Orthodox Christians in the independent countries of southern Africa are dependent on the Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem.

One key conflict among the Estonian Orthodox faithful has involved the charge that Archbishop Kornili's church has shown a preference for Russian candidates for the priesthood. And certainly some of the priests serving in Estonia show a heavy bias toward Moscow--even at the expense of their own country. Father Vyacheslav Seliverstov is a is priest at a Tallinn parish whose former pastor, Father Mikhail Ridigrer, liquidated the pro-Constantinople synod and created a new diocesan council united with Moscow. Father Vyacheslav told us that the Estonian form of Orthodoxy is not "real" Orthodoxy. "It's a cold, rational, Lutheran-style religion," he said. He added that if he and other ethnic Russians are forced out of their church buildings, "We will burn them down with ourselves in them, so that all the world will know that Estonia has a fascist government."

GOVERNMENT PLEDGES: NO USE OF FORCE

In an exclusive interview, the prime minister of Estonia gave his personal guarantee that the Estonian state will not use physical force to remove Russian Orthodox believers. "Never shall we use police forces against churches in Estonia," promised Prime Minister Tiit Vahi in a February 24 interview at his office in Tallinn's Toompea Castle.

Meeting Keston's correspondent during a break in Estonian Independence Day celebrations--marking the anniversary of the Baltic republic's first declaration of independence from Moscow's political rule in 1918--Vahi stressed that "in Estonia church and state are separate; as prime minister I can't solve problems of religion. We want to be a law-based society.'"But he added that "Since Estonia has regained its independence, it is only natural that its church again become independent."

Since the Estonian state accepts the pro-Constantinople group's claim to be the lawful heir of all Orthodox churches built before the Soviet occupation, the continued control of any of those church buildings by Archbishop Kornili's pro-Moscow group is technically illegal. Kornili and members of the ethnic-Russian faction in Estonia's parliament have repeatedly accused the pro-Constantinople group of planning to expel pro-Moscow believers from churches where they and their families have worshipped for generations.

Asked to comment on these accusations, Prime Minister Vahi replied that "the Estonian government has nothing to do with the religious side of this question. But at the same time I know that the Moscow diocese has been given a guarantee in written form from the Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church for the continued use of its own churches."

Lawrence A. Uzzell writes from Moscow on behalf of the Keston News Service. This report is based on his recent travels in Estonia as well as Russia.

The Faithful Choose Sides

Anyone who thinks that the church crisis in Estonia is simply an ecclesiastical version of ethnic politics should visit Tartu. The center of what is sometimes called "the real Estonia"--the forests and farmlands where Slavic immigrants from the Soviet period are heavily outnumbered by ethnic Estonians who are now forgetting the Russian language force-fed to them as schoolchildren--Tartu is the home of the country's 17th-century university and of several Orthodox churches. The largest of these, with an almost entirely Russian congregation under ethnic Russian priest Simeon Kruzhkov, is now defecting to the newly revived Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church under the Patriarch of Constantinople. But the purely Estonian congregation of ethnic Estonian priest Aleksandr Aim is staying loyal to the Patriarch of Moscow.

Estonia is the only one of the three Baltic republics in which "Orthodox" does not in effect mean "Russian." In the 19th century the majority of Orthodox Christians here were ethnic Estonians; the country's last president before the Soviet occupation was a practicing Orthodox whose brother was an priest. But the Orthodox have always been heavily outnumbered by the Lutherans; before 1940 Estonia had only 156 Orthodox parishes, nearly half of which were closed by Stalin and Khrushchev.

In a country where the remotest town is only a few hours' drive from the capital, all the Orthodox priests know each other well. As they take sides in the current confrontation, their personal relationships sometimes count for more than ethnic ties or political views. Some have tried to keep a foot in both camps, finally deciding on the basis of what they say is best for their parishes--or, their critics say, what is best for themselves.

As of late February, just before Constantinople unilaterally revived its Estonian jurisdiction, 54 of the country's current 84 parishes had expressed their desire to align themselves with Constantinople. But those 54 parishes were being served by only 11 priests, not all of whom were firmly pro-Constantinople. The Pro-Moscow priest Yuvenaly Karma, an ethnic Estonian, told us that many of the pro- Constantinople parishes are just barely alive, with services only once every few weeks and one priest serving several different parishes. Pro-Constantinople Deacon Aivar Sarapik conceded this point, but said that the numbers of ethnic Estonian Orthodox had been artificially lowered by policies of deliberate Russification during and even after the Soviet period.

DIVIDED LOYALTIES

Of the first 34 parishes to sign up with the revived structure under Constantinople, two use only Church Slavonic in worship. One of those two is Father Simeon's Church of the Assumption in Tartu. Father Simeon studied at the seminary in Leningrad with Archbishop Kornili of Tallinn; Kornili's predecessor Aleksei, now Patriarch of Moscow, is godfather to his son. When asked why he had chosen to support Constantinople, Father Simeon said that the interests of his own parish had weighed heavily. A few years ago the parish recovered an adjoining hall which had originally been church property before being confiscated during the soviet period. But in 1993 Father Simeon received a letter from an Estonian court, warning that his parish was occupying the newly returned building illegally because the parish was not part of a legally registered national church. In consultation with his parishioners, the priest decided to re-register the parish as part of the pro-Constantinople structure under secular law--but to remain canonically under the jurisdiction of Archbishop Kornili and Moscow.

Archbishop Kornili responded to this act of semi-rebellion by formally banning Fr Simeon from functioning as a priest. The two then met to discuss the problem, and Father Simeon agreed to give Archbishop Kornili a written statement declaring that he still considered himself to be under the canonical jurisdiction of Moscow. The archbishop then lifted the ban and even visited the Tartu parish to conduct a liturgy there with Father Simeon--even though the parish was still legally registered with the pro-Constantinople jurisdiction.

Father Simeon and his parish continued this dual status--canonically under one jurisdiction, legally under another--and continued to enjoy normal relations with the archbishop even after the priest visited Helsinki with pro-Constantinople clergy in 1995 for a meeting with the patriarch of Constantinople. The final straw was Father Simeon's participation in a meeting, also with pro-Constantinople clergy, to discuss church issues with the President of Estonia in the fall of 1995. In January 1996 Archbishop Kornili formally banned Father Simeon for the second time, and on February 24 the priest finally came out definitively on Constantinople's side by participating in the church service in Tallinn which installed Archbishop John of Finland as "locum tenens" of the pro-Constantinople jurisdiction.

Father Simeon revealed that hardly any of his ethnic-Russian flock had left the parish because of his transfer to Constantinople; he said that as long as worship services are conducted in the familiar Old Church Slavonic, his fellow Russians don't care about the jurisdictional issue.

His pro-Moscow neighbor, Father Aleksandr Aim, agreed. He said that "the language question decides everything: If I were to use more than one or two phrases in Slavonic, my Estonians would leave." But for himself, as for his fellow Estonian Father Yuvenaly Karma, a priest's duty of obedience to his bishop overrides everything else--especially if that bishop is the one who ordained him, his personal link to the Apostles. "I could never abandon the bishop who ordained me unless he fell into heresy," said Father Yuvenaly passionately.

Father Yuvenaly has an ethnically mixed parish, and has not succeeded in holding it together. Located in Haapsalu on Estonia's west coast, his Church of St Mary Magdalene once had a slight Russian majority. A parish meeting voted against joining the pro-Constantinople group, with most of the Estonians voting for Constantinople and most of the Russians for Moscow. As soon as they lost this vote, nearly all the Estonians left, including the choir director and other lay leaders--leaving the Estonian priest with an almost entirely Russian congregation.