Eesti Ringvaade

INTERNET EDITION

A Weekly Review of Estonian News

ISSN 1023-1951

Volume 6 Number 8

February 18-24, 1996


ESTONIAN APOSTOLIC ORTHODOX CHURCH UNDER THE JURISDICTION OF

CONSTANTINOPLE

February 23. President Meri received a delegation of the

Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople who were in Estonia

to restore the Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church under the

governance of Constantinople.

    The church leaders, among them Metropolitan of

Chalcedony Joachim, Metropolitan of Tyros Panteleimon,

Metropolitan of Philadelphia Meliton and Archbishop Johannes

of the Finnish Orthodox Church, handed a message from the

church council signed by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew

over to the President. The document restores the autonomy of

the Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church under the governance

of the Constantinople Patriarchate.

    The Ecumenical Synod appointed the leader of the

Finnish Orthodox Church, Archbishop of Karelia and all

Finland, Johannes, as the temporary head of the Estonian

church until the election of an Estonian archbishop.

    The Ecumenical Patriarchate has agreed that the Finnish

Orthodox Church will help Estonian believers with

arrangements and technical matters in building up the

Estonian church.

    Metropolitan Meliton of Philadelphia said that the

Constantinople Patriarchate could not ignore the appeals of

Estonian Orthodox Christians and leave the congregations here

without care. The Estonian church simply regained the status

it had before World War Two, Meliton added.

    The Constantinople Mother Church acknowledged the

autonomy of the Estonian Orthodox Church under the Ecumenical

Patriarchate in 1923. Following the annexation of Estonia by

Russia in 1940, the Estonian Orthodox Church was forced to

exist as a branch of the Russian Orthodox Church. As a result

of these actions, the Bishop of the Estonian Church, along

with 21 other priests and about 8000 believers, fled to

Sweden in 1944.

    In 1993, the Government of Estonia recognised the

Stockholm based Estonian orthodox church as the official

Estonian Apostolic-Orthodox Church and gave it the right to

reclaim its properties, including about 40 buildings and 3500

hectares of land that were nationalised by the Soviets.

    The Ecumenical Patriarchate is not interested in local

property issues which have to be settled according to local

laws, Meliton emphasised. Finnish Archbishop Johannes and

Priest Heikki Huttonen said that the decision did not aim to

create tensions between local Estonian and Russian-speaking

Orthodox Christians. It is just as unthinkable that the

Russian-speaking congregations could be deprived of the right

to use church buildings or be ostracised, they noted.