Dissolved but not uprooted” “

“The relation between Catholic and Orthodox monasteries is an important dimension of the ecumenical movement in general which needs to be further intensified to promote a spirituality in the search for full communion, nourished by the reading of Scripture, by ceaseless prayer and by Christian asceticism”. This is a passage from the message that Cardinal WALTER KASPER , President of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity, sent to the participants in the international conference on “Orthodox monasticism in Finland and in the Baltic States, held in recent days in the abbey of San Nilo at Grottaferrata (near Rome). The conference, promoted by the monastery of the Blessed Virgin of Grottaferrata, a Catholic monastery of Byzantine tradition, and by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, was aimed, as Msgr . BRIAN FARRELL, secretary of the said Pontifical Council, explained in his speech to the meeting, at providing “an occasion for a better understanding between Catholics and Orthodox with a view to the restoration of the full unity of Christians”. The ecumenical commitment, continued Msgr. Farrell, “is a call of God to make the Church resplendent once again, as was the Church of Christ”. The conference was divided into two sessions, dedicated respectively to the Orthodox Church of Finland (cf. SIR 66/2005) and to that of Estonia. CHURCH “MILITANT”. “Dissolved but not uprooted; suppressed but not eliminated”: that’s how Metropolitan STEPHANOS of Tallin and all Estonia, described the Orthodox Church in the country, a kind of “church militant” that, in spite of the adversities and persecutions suffered as a German “colony” between 1227 and 1918, and especially as a Soviet “colony” from 1944 on, was able to resist and to maintain its own identity intact. Today the Orthodox Church in Estonia comprises 19.4% of the some 1,350,000 inhabitants of the country. They are divided between three dioceses, each of 25/30 parishes. It’s a small Church that feels itself “close” to the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, but that must still solve “the question of its own independence, forcibly abolished in 1945, in a unilateral way and without respecting the canon law of the Patriarchate of Moscow”, and that still awaits the “return of the properties confiscated by the State”, explained Stephanos, who called the fate of the Estonian Church “under the Soviet regime” “a Calvary without end”. It was a period marked by the exile of Metropolitan Alexander, “followed by that of 23 priests and some 8,000 faithful, the assassination of two bishops and the subsequent deportation to Siberia of scores of other priests of whose fate nothing is known”. “I saw our Church abandoned by everyone: I hope – he concluded – that Estonia’s entry into the European Union may be of some help to us. We wish to exist; we shall continue to pray for the patriarch of Moscow and to be patient, but the unresolved question will remain like a thorn in the side of Orthodoxy as a whole”. Orthodox Bishop ATHENAGORAS of Sinope, representative of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople at the conference, expressed the hope that “the Orthodox Church may solve the question of its internal reunification and put an end to the so-called Orthodox ‘diaspora’”. “MUTILATED MONASTICISM”. Archimandrite GREGORIOS PAPATHOMAS spoke of a form of monasticism in the country that was mutilated “because it developed amid the thousand difficulties of the Estonian Orthodox Church that prevented it from flourishing”. It was a monasticism whose origins were in some sense “Catholic” because it was “imported” by the Benedictine and Cistercian communities. It was established in the country prior to the 16th century when, “with the Protestant Reformation, the massive arrival of Lutherans marked the beginning of its crisis”. “Reborn in relatively recent times”, today it comprises just two monasteries on Estonian territory, both of Russian foundation and language: Pühtitsa (Kuremac) and Petsery (Peciory). Both are visited by large numbers of pilgrims. The first, explained Papathomas, “was founded 200 years ago in the north-east of the country, on the frontier with Russia. It now has 120 nuns and is the place where the Patriarch of Moscow, Alexis II, Estonian in origin and former metropolitan of Estonia, has expressed the desire to be buried”. Petsery, in the south of the country, is a famous centre of monastic art. “The 80 monks present, whose main activity consists in painting episodes from the Bible on fabric, have – said Papathomas – contributed with their work to a kind of ‘practical catechism'”. At the present time “the statutory Charter of the Church in Estonia provides for the foundation of other monasteries on the territory”, continued the archimandrite, spelling out, together with Metropolitan Stephanos, the main objectives pursued by the Church today: “Securing a proper level of formation for priests, and to this end we have created new seminaries; collaborating with the political authorities, while maintaining quite distinct spheres and competences; and further promoting the responsibility and the awareness of the laity”, which, in Estonia, both prelates stressed, “cooperates in ecclesial life in a far more active way than in other Orthodox Churches”. “It is essential – concluded Stephanos – to teach our people to understand the significance and value of this co-responsibility”.