Estonian Orthodox Church Renames Itself Once More Amid Government Pressure

Tallinn, January 21, 2025

Photo: orthodox.ee     

The Estonian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate held its third Council session on January 10, 2025, in Tallinn. The session addressed concerns raised by the Tartu County Court’s registration department regarding the Church’s statute adopted on Estonian Church amends statutes to reflect administrative independenceThe Council of the Estonian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) adopted new statutes yesterday, granting itself administrative independence.

“>August 20.

Clergy and lay representatives participated in the session, including all active clergy, Synod members, and lay representatives from each parish.

Estonia is pressuring the Estonian Church to break ties with the Moscow Patriarchate and Estonian Orthodox Church formally rejects proposal to join Constantinople’s jurisdictionOn September 19, the head of the EAOC proposed at a session of the Estonian Council of Churches to create a Russian vicariate to subsume parishes of the EOC-MP.

“>join the Constantinople Patriarchate, which has its own presence in the country. While the Estonian Church has opposed the war and authorities confess they have Estonian gov’t sees no tangible threat from Estonian Church but pressuring its parishes to join Constantinople“We’ve already held the first [parish] meetings and plan to further expand this activity next week,” said Raivo Kuyt, Vice Chancellor for Population and Civil Society of the Ministry of the Interior.”>found no evidence of wrongdoing, the government expelled His Eminence Metropolitan Evgeny of Tallinn Metropolitan Evgeny forced to leave EstoniaHis Eminence Metropolitan Evgeny of Tallinn and All Estonia was forced to leave the country today after the authorities refused to renew his residence permit.”>in February and is demanding that the Church unilaterally end its connection to the Moscow Patriarchate, despite its autonomy in administration, at the threat of an entire Estonia: Bill submitted to ban churches tied to the Moscow PatriarchateThe Estonian Ministry of the Interior has seriously ramped up its pressure on the Estonian Orthodox Church as Minister Lauri Läänemets has proposed new legislation to ban religious organizations connected to the Moscow Patriarchate.”>ban.

The main agenda item for the recent Council session was resolving issues with the Church’s statutes, particularly the state’s requirement to change its name from “Estonian Orthodox Church” (“Eesti Õigeusu Kirik”), the Estonian Church reports. The Council adopted this name, dropping any official reference to the Moscow Patriarchate, but the state objected that this name is already used by Constantinople’s Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church when presenting itself in other languages.

The Council also addressed the fact that the court rejected the August decisions based on the fact that His Met. Evgeny, who chaired the session remotely, had already been driven out of the country

The Council participants reached a compromise solution, agreeing to rename the church to “Estonian Christian Orthodox Church” (“Eesti Kristlik Õigeusu Kirik”) and make minor clarifications to the statutes. However, they maintained that Met. Evgeny leadership remains legal, as Estonian law allows religious organizations to have up to half of their board members as non-residents. The Council emphasized that the Metropolitan thus retains full legal rights to continue his activities as head of the Church and member of its Synod.

The amended statute and required documentation were submitted electronically to the Tartu County Court’s registration department on January 16, for official registration of the changes.

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