_WORLD WATCH______________________________
________________Estonia_______________
Moscow presses for recognition
Orthodox Church split since 1993
Russian Orthodox Patriarch Aleksei II is pressing the prime minister of Estonia to grant legal recognition to Orthodox bishops in Estonia who remain aligned with his Moscow Patriarchate. To date, the only Orthodox body officially recognized by the government is the Estonian Orthodox Church, which broke from Moscow and became independent in 1996.
Estonia’s Prime Minister Mart Laar has indicated that his government cannot register the “Estonian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate,” because that body could be confused with the “Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church,” which has held legal status since 1993, before breaking from the Russian orbit. The Estonian government would prefer to register the Moscow-aligned churches as dioceses of the “Russian Orthodox Church in Estonia.”
Patriarch Aleksei indicated, in a message to the Estonian leader, that the government’s policy constitutes a denial of religious freedom for those Orthodox believers who remain in union with Moscow. He criticized the government for its alleged failure to recognize the historical ties between the Orthodox community of Estonia and the Moscow Patriarchate—which, Aleksei observes, trace back to the 11th century. And he argued that since 1920, the Russian Orthodox Church has granted a measure of self-government to the Estonian Orthodox bishops.
The status of the Estonian Orthodox Church has been a matter of heated controversy since 1993, when most of the Orthodox bishops in that country backed a movement for independence from the Moscow Patriarchate. When the newly independent Estonian Orthodox Church gained recognition by the Ecumenical Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople, that move caused a deep rift between the Russian Orthodox Church—by far the largest of the Eastern churches—and the Patriarchate of Constantinople—recognized worldwide as the “first among equals” of the world’s Orthodox prelates. The dispute has taken on new intensity this year, as Orthodox prelates in Ukraine, having broken away from the Moscow-backed hierarchy there, have petitioned for recognition from Constantinople.
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