The Estonian problem

War of words between the Patriarchate of Moscow and the Estonian Apostolic Church: its origin can be traced back to events in Ravenna between 9 and 15 October, during the plenary session of the International Mixed Commission for theological dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church as a whole. On 10 October, the delegation of the Patriarchate of Moscow – led by Bishop Hilarion of Vienna and Austria – suspended its participation in the meeting due to a profound divergence with the Patriarchate of Constantinople. At the centre of the dispute is the question of the status of the Estonian Orthodox Apostolic Church, established by the Patriarchate of Constantinople on a territory that, according to the Russian Orthodox Church, forms part of the “canonical territory of the Patriarchate of Moscow”. THE ESTONIAN VERSION. The French-language Orthodox information website (Orthodoxie.com) published an official communiqué on Tuesday 23 October, in which the Tallinn-based Orthodox Church of Estonia (EAOK) traced its historical profile. “The Orthodox Church of Estonia, whose official name in Estonian is ‘EAOK’ – i.e. Orthodox Apostolic Church of Estonia – was granted autonomy by the Ecumenical Patriarchate in 1923”. “But thereafter, and also recently, the Russian authorities, both civil and ecclesiastical, have never ceased publicly to reject it. According to them, the Estonian State has only existed since 1991” and therefore “Estonia continues to remain the canonical territory of the Patriarchate of Moscow”. The communiqué recalls that in 1941 Metropolitan Alexandre of Estonia was summoned to Moscow and forced to sign a declaration of submission to the Patriarchate of Moscow and of the re-integration of his Church ‘within the Mother Church'”. In the following year, the Metropolitan – in a circular – disavowed the signature he had under compulsion placed [on this document] and in 1944 was sent into exile with another 22 members of his clergy and 8,000 faithful. He died in Stockholm in 1957. Estonia regained its political independence in 1991. “After so many years of suffering and the numerous persecutions of which it was the victim – continues the communiqué – the Orthodox Apostolic Church of Estonia, finally free and re-established in its canonical and ecclesiastical rights, aspires only to live peacefully and sensibly with all its Orthodox brothers of the Patriarchate of Moscow to bear common witness in the name of Christ”. THE RUSSIAN VERSION. On the same day, the Patriarchate of Moscow published a statement with the title “Orthodoxy in Estonia is the fruit of the efforts of evangelization of Russian missionaries” on the website of the French Russian Orthodox diocese of Chersonèse. “The history of Orthodoxy in the Baltic States – says the statement – is complex due to the numerous invasions and tribulations that the peoples of that region have suffered during past centuries. One fact however is indisputable: if Orthodoxy exists in the Baltic States, alongside Catholicism and the various currents of the Reformation, it is thanks to the work of Russian missionaries, from Kiev and Moscow”. What the Church of Moscow cannot accept is the decision taken by the Patriarchate of Constantinople in 1996 to resume “control” of the Orthodox Church of Estonia which it had lost in 1941, creating an “Apostolic Orthodox Church of Estonia, parallel to the autonomous Church that already existed”. “This rivalry between the two jurisdictions continues to have a negative influence on relations between the Orthodox Churches, in particular in collaboration between the Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Russian Orthodox Church”. THE PROBLEM. The Estonian question in fact conceals a far more ancient bone of contention: that relating to relations between Constantinople and Moscow. In an exclusive interview granted to the Russian Interfax press agency, Bishop Hilarion made a precise accusation against Metropolitan Ioannis of Pergamon of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, who co-chairs (together with Cardinal Walter Kasper) the Mixed Commission of theological dialogue. According to Bishop Hilarion, Metropolitan Ioannis is “responsible for derailing the dialogue” by deliberately forcing the Patriarchate of Moscow to abandon the talks. Though a pan-Orthodox accord does exist thanks to which dialogue continues even if one of the members should abandon it, according to Hilarion the fact that the talks “exclude the largest Orthodox Church whose number of believers exceeds the total number of members of the all the other Orthodox Churches put together, places in doubt the very legitimacy of the Orthodox-Catholic dialogue”. Moreover, “Constantinople wants to oblige us to accept a model of church organization that has never existed in the Orthodox tradition and that is linked to the existing model of the Roman Catholic Church. In this model the Patriarch of Constantinople should play the role of ‘pope of the East'”. Hilarion further points out that the Orthodox Churches and the Catholic Church have “essentially different ecclesiastical models” and that “the Patriarch of Constantinople has never played the same role as that played by the bishop of Rome in the Catholic Church”.