Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church

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The Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church ( Eesti Apostlik-Õigeusu Kirik , EAOK) is an Orthodox church in Estonia . It is subordinate to the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople as an autonomous church .

It is not identical to the Estonian Orthodox Church, which belongs to the Patriarchate of Moscow.

history

In Estonia, which has been Lutheran since the Reformation , the Orthodox faith had spread during its membership of the tsarist empire through immigration by Russians , but also among the Estonians. After Estonia's independence, the country's Orthodox communities were dissolved from the Moscow Patriarchate in 1923 and placed under the Ecumenical Patriarch as the Estonian Orthodox Church.

When Estonia became part of the Soviet Union after the Second World War , the local Orthodox Church was in fact again subordinated to the Moscow Patriarchate in 1944, which was legitimized by Constantinople in 1978. The Estonian Orthodox Church only survived in emigration.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the regaining of independence, the Orthodox Estonians tried to restore their national church and to give it state and ecclesiastical recognition. State recognition took place in 1993 through registration as an independent church organization with the Estonian Ministry of the Interior. The church was recognized in 1996 when the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomeos I declared that the recognition of the Estonian Orthodox Church, which was pronounced in 1923, was back in force. The Moscow Patriarchate protested against this.

This is how two Orthodox churches came into being in Estonia:

  • the Eesti Apostlik-Õigeusu Kirik under the Ecumenical Patriarchate
  • the Moskva Patriarhaadi Eesti Õigeusu Kirik under the Moscow Patriarchate

The parishes had to decide whether they wanted to be subordinate to the Estonian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate or the Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church in the Patriarchate of Constantinople. This decision is usually made according to the linguistic and ethnic affiliation of the majority of the parishioners.

Current situation

According to the Estonian census of 2011, 13.7% of the population professed Orthodox Christianity (54% did not belong to any religion, a further 17% did not answer the question). Among the believers, 134,300 Russians, 20,600 Estonians, 10,800 Ukrainians and 6,200 Belarusians made up the largest ethnic groups. Almost 40% of the Russians and Ukrainians living in Estonia and almost half of the Belarusians living in Estonia belonged to the Orthodox Church, but only 2% of the ethnic Estonians.

The current head of the Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church is the Metropolitan of Tallinn and all of Estonia Stephanos (Charalambides) .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Die Republik (since 1990) in the historicum.net portal, accessed on October 17, 2018.
  2. ^ Russia Takes Further Step Toward Major Schism in Orthodox Church . In: The New York Times , October 15, 2018, accessed October 17, 2018.
  3. International Religious Freedom Report for 2014.
  4. Database query at the Estonian Statistical Office, January 25, 2016.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / pub.stat.ee