CONFLICTS between church and state usually erupt when a church is concerned with the morality of legislation or actions of a government. However heated these conflicts can become, we rarely find the state posing an existential threat to the church. This is just what we find in Estonia at the moment. The Estonian Government has passed legislation which would outlaw the Estonian Orthodox Christian Church (EOCC), the largest Orthodox church in the country. As Christians across the world celebrated Easter, the EOCC called on the Vatican, the Church of England and the World Council of Churches, urging them to intervene to stop the Estonian Government from banning their church.
Estonia’s parliament has now approved long-threatened government-backed legislation requiring the EOCC to end its affiliation with the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), which has consistently supported Russia’s war in Ukraine, something which Western commentators have been scathing in their critiques of (see here and here). Ties have to be severed within two months, or they will face a court-imposed ban on its activities. The government’s actions would also lead to the closing of Pühtitsa Convent, the only functioning Russian Orthodox convent in Estonia.
A Church representative explained that severing ties with Moscow would amount to state interference in the core of Orthodox belief: ‘The law interferes with the very essence of how Orthodox Christianity functions and how our believers understand their spiritual identity and religious heritage.’ In our present secular age, where there is widespread ignorance of theology and the faith, we can expect this type of situation to occur more frequently.
Estonia is one of the least religious countries in the world, with only 14 per cent of the population saying that religion is an important part of their life. This is probably due to the long period of Soviet occupation beginning in 1944. Historically, Estonia is a Lutheran nation, but there remains a significant Orthodox population.
The Estonian Government, a coalition of two liberal parties, Reform and Estonia 2000, with the addition of the left-of-centre Social Democratic Party, intend to pass legislation which will ban affiliation with any foreign spiritual centre deemed a ‘security threat’. The Estonian Parliament has already designated the ROC as a security threat. The EOCC faces termination solely for maintaining their canonical ties with the ROC, not for any actual unlawful conduct.
While the EOCC has a canonical affiliation to the Russian Orthodox Church, it has no administrative subordination and is not controlled by the ROC in any way. The EOCC is an autonomous self-governing church, sharing a theology with the ROC but independent of it. Throughout the Ukraine war, the EOCC has complied with Estonian law and has issued clear statements condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine, denouncing it, and the consequent war, as illegal.
When the war began the EOCC stated, ‘The United Nations General Assembly has condemned Russia’s military actions in Ukraine. As representatives of the member churches of the Estonian Council of Churches, we share and support this assessment.’ The EOCC has also clearly rejected the political positions of Patriarch Kirill, the Kremlin-supporting patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church. Despite these clear statements and not being guilty of any infraction of Estonian law, these peaceful religious communities now face dissolution.
Estonia’s Interior Minister Lauri Läänemets, a Social Democrat, recently threatened to deport clergy members of the EOCC, saying the ‘grounds for their stay here might shatter’. If this attack on the EOCC continues, a centuries-old religious institution will end, and many Christians will be scattered to the wind and find themselves ecclesiastically homeless.
Action against the EOCC and the Pühtitsa Convent because of supposed Russian influence is nothing new. In 1919, after Estonia became independent from Russia, the new government confiscated most of the convent’s land and transferred the Convent to the Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church, independent of Moscow. This was reversed in June 1990 when the monastery was placed under the direct authority of the Moscow patriarch. Despite this theological connection, the Convent’s strict separation from the secular world means that it maintains an essentially apolitical nature.
It betrays profound theological ignorance to argue that there is another Orthodox church in Estonia where believers can worship. The Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church (EAOC) comes under the direct jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople and is thus free from connection with Russia and harassment by the government. The EOCC has approximately 150,000 believers whilst the EAOC numbers about 20,000. To the secularists who constitute the Estonian Government, there might appear to be no more than slight differences between one Orthodox denomination and another. To believers, these slight differences of theology, tradition and administration can be matters of deep principle.
The EOCC are asking for both the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) and the United States Government to invoke their commitments to uphold and defend the right to freedom of religion around the world in the light of the ‘ongoing and systematic campaign against the Church and the Convent’ in Estonia. It wants USCIRF to provide international support.
What is happening in Estonia is similar to events in Ukraine. Ukrainian Law 3894 was adopted by the Ukrainian Parliament and signed into law by President Zelenskyy in August 2024. There are well-founded concerns that the Ukrainian Government aims to use Law 3894 to dismantle the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), seeking to unite Ukrainian Orthodoxy under a single state-approved church, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU).
As a senator, JD Vance publicly condemned similar moves by the Ukrainian Government to ban the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Speaking in the US Senate, he said: ‘You don’t deprive an entire religious community of their religious freedom because some of its adherents don’t agree with you about the relevant conflict of the day.’
Lord Jackson of Peterborough, Vice Chair of the UK All-Party Parliamentary Group for International Freedom of Religion or Belief, said: ‘There is something deeply bizarre about nations that will denounce authoritarian dictatorships but then force through legislation in direct contravention of the international laws they claim to uphold.’
Even if the EOCC were not separate from Russia, a democratic state has no competency to ban religious denominations. Individuals should be prosecuted for breaking the law, churches can be opposed but should not be banned. Once they start banning churches, Ukraine and Estonia become no better than those they claim to oppose.
