Posted on 10/11/2007 7:29:00 AM PDT by kawaii
10 October 2007, 12:39 Russian clerics leave meeting on Orthodox-Catholic dialogue over rifts
Moscow, October 10, Interfax - A delegation of the Moscow Patriarchate on Tuesday left a meeting of the Mixed Commission for Orthodox-Catholic Theologian Dialogue, which opened in Ravenna, Italy.
"Following their arrival in Ravenna the Orthodox delegation learned that representatives of the so-called Estonian Apostolic Church, formed in 1996 by the Constantinople Patriarchate on the canonical territory of the Moscow Patriarchate, had been entered on the list of delegates," bishop Hilarion of Vienna and Austria, the Russian Church's envoy in Europe and a member of the Mixed Commission, told Interfax.
Bishop Hilarion told the Orthodox members of the Commission that the Moscow Patriarchate does not recognize "the Estonian Apostolic Church" as an autonomous canonical organization, and warned that if its representatives did not leave, the delegates of the Russian Church would do so.
He, however, told the Mixed Commission that the Moscow Patriarchate attaches great importance to a broader dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church.
"The delegation of the Russian Church left the meeting after talks with Archbishop Ioann (Constantinople Patriarchate) "failed to produce mutual understanding," he said.
The meeting in Ravenna discussed supreme authority in the Universal Church.
I thought Estonia was Lutheran.
From Wiki re Estonia and Religion
According to the most recent Eurostat “Eurobarometer” poll, in 2005 [47], 16% of Estonian citizens responded that “they believe there is a God”, whereas 54% answered that “they believe there is some sort of spirit or life force” and 26% that “they do not believe there is any sort of spirit, God, or life force”. This, according to the survey, would have made Estonians the most non-religious people in the then 25-member European Union. Historically, however, Estonia used to be stronghold of Lutheranism due to its strong links to the Nordic countries.
Traditional religion of the Estonians is the Christian belief in the form the Evangelical Lutheran confession (as in the Nordic countries).
Less than a third of the population define themselves as believers, of those the majority are Lutheran, whereas the Russian minority is Eastern Orthodox. Ancient equinoctial heathen traditions are held in high regard. Today, about
32 % of the population are members of a church or religious group, thereof:
14.8 % Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church
13.9 % Estonian Orthodox Church
ca. 10,000 Muslims
ca. 6,000 Baptists
ca. 3,500 Roman Catholics
There are also a number of smaller Protestant, Jewish, and Buddhist groups.
Worth noting (also from wiki)
Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church
Founder —
Independence 1917
Recognition 1996 by Constantinople
Primate Metr. Stephanos
Headquarters Tallinn, Estonia
Territory Republic of Estonia
Possessions —
Language Estonian
Adherents 20,000
Estonian Orthodox Church of Moscow Patriarchate
Founder —
Independence 1917
Recognition 2002 by Estonia
Primate Cornelius (Yacobs) of Tallinn and All Estonia
Headquarters Tallinn, Estonia
Territory Republic of Estonia
Possessions —
Language Russian
Adherents 250,000
Good point! Thus modern Estonia is derived, through the Reformation, from the Catholic Church. Estonia was Christianized by Catholics in the early 13th cent. It remained Catholic until the Reformation in the 16th cent. Thus should we not considered the territory that Moscow and Constantinople are arguing over to be canonically Latin and Catholic within the Apostolic church. Is not this the reasoning that Moscow gives to keep Catholics out of Russia?
It would be clearer if they'd stuck to either percentages or numbers (preferably both).
You have a point, Petrosius. This canonical wrangling over territory seems a little odd in this day and age when there are Catholic Churches in Russia, Orthodox Churches in Venice, and all kinds of craziness in Jerusalem. And let’s not even bring up the U.S., where immigration has left us with various overlapping jurisdictions between the different Orthodox patriarchs and the Roman/Eastern Catholics.
Things are divided across ethnicities far more than geography anymore. How many different bishops are there of New York? LOL
your mixing apples and oranges.
There are 6000 Roman Catholic in Estonia. There are about 300,000 Orthodox Christians in Estonia about 20,000 of which are part of the politically invented Estonian church. This is really no different than when an English King invented his own church over politcal and doctrinal differences with authentic Catholicsim.
formed in 1996 by the Constantinople Patriarchate on the canonical territory of the Moscow Patriarchate
Interesting. So this is more about Constantinople vs. Moscow than Moscow vs. Rome?
How long have the Russian Orthodox been there? Had they been established for a while?
Very interesting, thanks!
I guess Estonia *was* Lutheran, more or less, but times have changed.
There’s still a lot of Lutherans there but about as many Orthodox (which I don’t think is an issue of big dispute for the Moscow Patriarchate) this particular riff is between the Moscow Patriarchate (with it’s 250,000 adherents) vs the Church the Patriarch of Constantinople has established which has about 20,000.
History (From wiki your mileage may vary)
Orthodox missionaries from Novgorod and Pskov were active among the Estonians in the southeast regions of the area, closest to Pskov, in the 10th through 12th centuries. The first mention of an Orthodox congregation in Estonia was in 1030 in what is now Tartu. Around 600 AD on the east side of Toome Hill (Toomemägi) the Estonians established the town Tarbatu. In 1030, the Kievan prince, Yaroslav the Wise, raided Tarbatu and built his own fort called Yuriev, as well as, allegedly, a congregation in a cathedral dedicated to his patron saint, St. George. The congregation may have survived until 1061, when, according to chronicles, Yuriev was burned down and the Orthodox Christians expelled.
As a result of the Northern Crusades in the beginning of the 13th century, Northern Estonia was conquered by Denmark and the Southern part of the country by the Teutonic Order and later by the Livonian Brotherhood of the Sword, and thus fell under the control of Western Christianity. However, Russian merchants were later able to set up small Orthodox congregations in several Estonian towns. One such congregation was expelled from the town of Dorpat (Tartu) by the Germans in 1472, who martyred their priest, Isidor, along with a number of Orthodox faithful (the group is commemorated on January 8).
Little is known about the history of the church in the area until the 17th and 18th centuries, when many Old Believers fled there from Russia to avoid the liturgical reforms introduced by Patriarch Nikon of Moscow.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, Estonia was a part of the Imperial Russian Empire, having been conquered by the emperor Peter the Great. A significant number of Estonian peasants were converted to the Orthodox faith in the hope of obtaining land. Numerous Orthodox churches were built. In 1850 the Diocese of Riga (in Latvia) was established by the Russian Orthodox Church and many Estonian Orthodox believers were included. In the late 19th century, a wave of Russification was introduced, supported by the Russian hierarchy but not by the local Estonian clergy. The Cathedral of St. Alexander Nevsky in Tallinn and the Pühtitsa (Pukhtitsa) convent in Kuremäe in East Estonia were also built around this time.
In 1917 the first Estonian, Platon (Paul Kulbusch), was ordained Bishop of Riga and Vicar of Tallinn. Two years later, the Bolsheviks murdered Platon and his deacon. 81 years later, in 2000, Bp. Platon was proclaimed a saint by the Churches of Constantinople and Russia, commemorated on January 14.
After the Estonian Republic was proclaimed in 1918, the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, St. Tikhon, in 1920 recognised the Orthodox Church of Estonia (OCE) as being independent. Archbishop Aleksander Paulus was elected and ordained as the head of the Estonian church. In September 1922 the Council of the Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church took the decision to address the then infamous Patriarch of Constantinople, Meletius IV (Metaxakis) of Constantinople, with a petition to adopt the Estonian Orthodox Church under the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople and to declare it autocephalous. Later on the Metropolitan of Tallinn and all Estonia Alexander wrote that it was done under an intense pressure of the state. On 7 July 1923 in Constantinople Meletios Metaxakis presented the Tomos on the adoption of Estonian Orthodox Church under the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople as a separate church autonomy “Estonian Orthodox Metropolia”.
At the suggestion of the Patriarchate of Constantinople Estonia was divided into three dioceses: in Tallinn, Narva and Pechery. Evsevy (Drozdov) became the head of Narva cathedra, John (Bulin), a graduate of St Petersburg Theological Academy, became bishop of Pechery in 1926. He headed the diocese until 1932 and left it because of the disagreements on the properties of Pskov-Pechery Monastery. Bishop John spent several years in Yugoslavia and came back to Estonia in late 30-s. He backed actively the returning of Estonian Orthodox Church under the jurisdiction of Moscow Patriarchate. On 18 October 1940 bishop John was arrested by NKVD in Pechery, accused of anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda and he was executed on 30 July 1941 in Leningrad.
Before 1941, one fifth of the total Estonian population (who had been mostly Lutheran since the Reformation in the early 1500s when the country was controlled by the Teutonic Order) were Orthodox Christians under the Patriarchy of Constantinople. There were 158 parishes in Estonia and 183 clerics in the Estonian church. There was also a Chair of Orthodoxy in the Faculty of Theology at the University of Tartu. There was a Pskovo-Pechorsky Monastery in Petseri, two convents—in Narva and Kuremäe, a priory in Tallinn and a seminary in Petseri. The ancient monastery in Petseri was preserved from the mass church destructions that occurred in Soviet Russia.
In 1940, Estonia was occupied by the Soviet Union, whose government undertook a general programme of the dissolution of all ecclesiastical independence within its territory. From 1942 to 1944, however, autonomy under Constantinople was temporarily revived. In 1945, a representative of the Moscow Patriarchate dismissed the members of the OCE synod who had remained in Estonia and established a new organisation, the Diocesan Council. Orthodox believers in occupied Estonia were thus subordinated to being a diocese within the Russian Orthodox Church.
Soon after the war broke out, Metropolitan Alexander declared his break-up with Mother-Church and reunion with the Patriarchate of Constantinople. Bishop of Narva Paul remained loyal to Mother-Church. During the occupation Germans didn’t hamper Metropolitan Alexander to lead the life of his parishes and bishop Paul to be in charge of the Russian diocese in Narva and many other parishes loyal to Russian Orthodox Church.
Not long before the liberation of Tallinn Metropolitan Alexander left Estonia, the Synod of Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church addressed Alexy (Simansky), Metropolitan of Leningrad and Novgorod, with a petition to resume the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate.
Just before the second Soviet occupation in 1944 and the dissolution of the Estonian synod, the primate of the church, Metropolitan Aleksander, went into exile along with 21 clergymen and about 8,000 Orthodox believers. The Orthodox Church of Estonia in Exile with its synod in Sweden continued its activity according to the canonical statutes, until the restoration of Estonian independence in 1991. Before he died in 1953, Metr. Aleksander established his community as an exarchate under Constantinople. Most of the other bishops and clergy who remained behind were exiled to Siberia. In 1958, a new synod was established in exile, and the church was organized from Sweden.
Following the breakup of the Soviet Union, divisions within the Orthodox community in Estonia arose between those who wished to remain under Russian authority and those who wished to return to the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, with the dispute often taking place along ethnic lines, many Russians having immigrated to Estonia during the Soviet occupation. Lengthy negotiations between the two patriarchates failed to produce any agreement.
In 1993, the synod of the Orthodox Church of Estonia in Exile was re-registered as the autonomous Orthodox Church of Estonia, and on February 20, 1996, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I renewed the tomos granted to the OCE in 1923, restoring its canonical subordination to the Ecumenical Patriarchate. This action brought immediate protest from the Estonian-born Patriarch Alexei II of the Moscow Patriarchate, which regarded his native Estonia as part of his canonical territory and the Patriarch of Moscow temporarily removed the name of the Ecumenical Patriarch from the diptychs.
An agreement was reached in which local congregations could choose which jurisdiction to follow. The Orthodox community in Estonia, which accounts for about 14% of the total population, remains divided, with the majority of faithful (mostly ethnic Russians) remaining under Moscow. As of a government report of November 2003, about 20,000 believers (mostly ethnic Estonians) in 60 parishes are part of the autonomous church, with 150,000 faithful[attribution needed] in 31 parishes, along with the monastic community of Pühtitsa, paying traditional allegiance to Moscow.
In 2000, On 6 November 2000 Archbishop Cornelius became Metropolitan of Tallinn and All Estonia.
But we set our seal likewise upon all the other holy canons set forth by our holy and blessed Fathers, that is, by the 318 holy God-bearing Fathers assembled at Nice, and those at Ancyra, further those at Neocæsarea and likewise those at Gangra, and besides, those at Antioch in Syria: those too at Laodicea in Phrygia: and likewise the 150 who assembled in this heaven-protected royal city: and the 200 who assembled the first time in the metropolis of the Ephesians, and the 630 holy and blessed Fathers at Chalcedon. In like manner those of Sardica …Now Canon V of the Council of Sardica states:
Bishop Hosius said: Decreed, that if any bishop is accused, and the bishops of the same region assemble and depose him from his office, and he appealing, so to speak, takes refuge with the most blessed bishop of the Roman church, and he be willing to give him a hearing, and think it right to renew the examination of his case, let him be pleased to write to those fellow-bishops who are nearest the province that they may examine the particulars with care and accuracy and give their votes on the matter in accordance with the word of truth. And if any one require that his case be heard yet again, and at his request it seem good to move the bishop of Rome to send presbyters a latere, let it be in the power of that bishop, according as he judges it to be good and decides it to be right—that some be sent to be judges with the bishops and invested with his authority by whom they were sent. And be this also ordained. But if he think that the bishops are sufficient for the examination and decision of the matter let him do what shall seem good in his most prudent judgment.See how simple it is. ;-)The bishops answered: What has been said is approved.
On a more serious note, is the division between the two Estonian churches one between ethnic Estonians on the one side and Russians on the other, or is it a split within either or both groups within the church in Estonia?
Wow. That’s tangled!
So it looks to me that, historically, Estonia is Moscow’s jurisdiction, but St. Tikhon gave them autocephaly in the 20s, and after that everything goes haywire.
I dunno what to think, except that the Soviet regime royally screwed up the Russian Orthodox Church.
Autocephalous churches:
Autonomous churches: Question: When is Phyletism not Phyletism?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.