BONJOUR L'ESTONIE

Moscow Patriarchate becomes owner of Tallinn church building

Tallinn - The compound of Tallinn's Orthodox Church of the Icon of the Joy of All Who Sorrow passed into the ownership of its Russian Orthodox Church parish under an agreement between the Moscow Patriarchate-governed Estonian Orthodox Church and the Tallinn mayor's office.

The document was signed by Kornily, Metropolitan of Tallin and All Estonia, and Mayor Edgar Savisaar, the Estonian Orthodox Church said in a statement.

The mayor's office said the church building had been used for worship services and charitable activities since 2003

Prime Minister Andrus Ansip meets with His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew

Stenbock House – Prime Minister Andrus Ansip and His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew welcomed cooperation and talked about the role of religion and Orthodox Christianity in Estonian society during their meeting today.

Prime Minister Andrus Ansip said during the meeting that cooperation between the Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church and government institutions was strong and thanked His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and Metropolitan Stephanos.

Both Estonia and the Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church are celebrating an anniversary year. The Prime Minister congratulated Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew on the 90th anniversary of the Church being granted autonomy and said that it was a great honour for Estonia and the Estonian Orthodox community to welcome His Holiness to Estonia.

The Prime Minister recognised the Patriarch’s personal role in re-establishing Orthodox congregations in Estonia and other countries after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The Prime Minister and Patriarch Bartholomew also discussed various forms of cooperation between the government and the church. The Prime Minister highlighted as an example that the government supported the work of chaplains in prisons, the police and the armed forces. Allocations from the state budget for the maintenance and restoration of churches and places of worship have remained at the same level for two years. In 2013, the government allocated 722,800 euros for that purpose, 36.4% of which went to the Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church.

The Prime Minister also expressed his satisfaction that the issue of church assets has been solved since the last visit of the Patriarch.

To see photographs from the event click here: http://valitsus.ee/et/uudised/pildialbum#2567-1

Patriarch Kirill in Estonia

Moscow - Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia is in Estonia since friday and up to today, June 16th, Protodeacon Alexander Volkov, the head of the patriarchal press service, told Interfax-Religion.

"The head of the [Russian Orthodox] Church is visiting the Estonian Orthodox Church in order to share the prayer with Orthodox Christians of Estonia. The visit's program includes numerous religious services and meetings with the faithful," he said.

Upon arrival, the Patriarch presided over a religious service at Tallinn's Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, and conducted a religious service at Puhtitsa Convent, a major Russian monastic center, yesterday. Yesterday too, Patriarch Kirill visited the Narva Diocese, which was established in 2011 within the Estonian Orthodox Church. It was the Patriarch's first visit to the town of Narva, which is located near the Russian-Estonian border, where he presided over a religious service at a local cathedral.

"Another very important religious service will take place on Sunday," Father Alexander said.

"The Patriarch will consecrate a stately cathedral named after the Mother of God Quick to Hearken icon in Tallinn's Lasnamae district. The groundbreaking ceremony for this cathedral took place a decade ago under the late Patriarch Alexy II, who grew up in Estonia and had a special connection with this country," he said.

During the visit, Patriarch Kirill plans to meet with a number of Estonia's high-ranking officials, including the prime minister, parliament speaker, foreign minister and Tallinn mayor, as well as the archbishop of the Estonian Evangelic Lutheran Church.

On the first day of his trip, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church visited the Linda Monument in Tallinn and layed flowers at the World War II Bronze Soldier Monument. "Doubtless, the visit by the head of the Russian Orthodox Church to Estonia will play an important spiritual role for Orthodox Christians who live in this country," Father Alexander said.

Patriarch Bartholomew to Visit Estonia

The Archbishop of Constantinople, Patriarch Bartholomew, will attend the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Apostolic Orthodox Church of Estonia in September.

“In 1923, Archbishop of Constantinople Meletios granted our church autonomy. That means internal independence with a few slight constraints. The head of the church must be sanctioned by the archbishop, for example,” Mattias Pall, head priest of the church, told ETV Tuesday.

The trip will be Bartholomew's second to Estonia, having previously visited in 2000. The church yesterday marked the death of bishop and martyr Plato, who was murdered by Bolsheviks in Tartu in January 1919. The bishop, who was Estonian, was canonized 13 years ago.  

Head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, is reported to be set for a visit to Estonia in June.

Is Estonia really the least religious country in the world ?

Estonians, and especially the young, have turned their backs on organised religion, but belief in neo-paganism is thriving.

Estonia and the Czech Republic are the two nations that often claim to be the least religious in Europe. And they seem to be proud of their unbelief. According to the census of 2000, 29% of the total population considered themselves as adherents of some religion. Almost 14% of them were Lutherans (in the 1930s the percentage of Lutherans was over 80), and about 13% Orthodox Christians divided between two churches: one under the canonical jurisdiction of ecumenical patriarchate and the other under the jurisdiction of Moscow patriarchate.

A Eurobarometer poll in 2005 found that only 16% of the Estonian population believed in God. With this number, Estonia hit the bottom of the list. However, at the same time more than half the population (54%) believed in some sort of spirit or life force. Thus it could be claimed that 70% of the Estonian population are believers, at least in some sense of the word. Professor Grace Davie's description of the British religiosity as"believing without belonging" seems to fit to the Estonian context as well.

The churches are on Sundays mostly empty and the ignorance of religion is widespread. According to the available statistics and surveys, the membership of religious associations in Estonia remains under one fifth of the total population.

Non-Estonians (mainly immigrants of Russian stock) are considerably more religious, and this becomes even more evident among the younger generations. Surveys show that young Estonians in general have become estranged from every form of religion that could be considered as traditional or as religion at all.

Orthodox Church of Estonia offended by Moscow Patriarchate

The head of the Orthodox Church of Estonia, Metropolitan Stephanos, said that public speeches by the visiting Metropolitan Hilarion, of the Moscow Patriarchate, contained a “tone of disdain” toward Estonian history and inhabitants.

Metropolitan Hilarion recently visited Estonia and raised the issue of local church property with the foreign minister. The Orthodox Church of Estonia, an autonomous church committed to the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, claimed that property issues have already been solved in agreements with the government.

 “Any new agreement would presuppose recognition of the autonomy of the local Metropolitan by the Moscow Patriarchate,” wrote a statement by the Orthodox Church of Estonia. “The aim of one Orthodox Church on the Estonian territory is our common goal, but it should not mean engulfing of the local Church as in 1945.”

Estonian Lutheran Church protests Mormon use of deceased records

The Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church is lambasting the Ministry of the Interior for allowing the Mormon Church access to records that may be being used to re-baptize deceased Estonians.

Estonian Lutherans are not happy with the state’s cooperation agreement with the U.S.-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that allows the copying of Estonian state archives to Mormon databases, the Baltic Reports website reported last week.

The arrangement has been in place since the early 1990s, with the ministry receiving millions of Estonian krooni from the Mormon Church in exchange for the access. The ministry, Tallinn City Archive and Estonian Historical Archives signed a contract with the Genealogical Society of Utah, a nonprofit run by the Mormon Church that is dedicated to preserving the records of the families to help people connect with their ancestors by facilitating easy access to historical records.

Money was not the only benefit to Estonia, as the Mormon Church did all the legwork to digitalize the data and make it available for Estonians to trace their ancestry and find out about their family’s past.

State archivist Priit Pirsko told the Postimees newspaper that the state had started an online archive but concluded that “the Mormons’ technological capability is tens of times greater, so we made them a proposal to exchange digital copies.”

Only a return to Christian values will save secularist post-Soviet Estonia

TALLINN – Like many of the Soviet satellite states that found independence after the collapse of Soviet communism, Estonia is suffering from a deeply “confused” social and moral state, with its shift from a “communist form of open materialism to the capitalist form of subtle materialism.” Estonia is a micro-experiment in Europe’s extreme secularization, and is reaping the demographic consequences, a young Estonian pro-life advocate and teacher told LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) in an extensive interview.

Estonia’s economic prosperity has led to its social fabric being eaten away by rampant divorce, abortion and suicide; only a return to its Christian roots will save the heavily secularized country, said Maria Madise, 29, a Catholic convert and founding member of the pro-life organization Institute for the Culture of Life in the capital Tallinn.

Madise is in the vanguard of a movement that is manifesting all over Europe: young people who have rejected the Marxist-inspired social and cultural revolution of the 1960s and are working to restore traditional Christian culture.

She told LSN, “What the Estonian general moral and social attitudes are reluctant to adopt – but hopefully will eventually – is that the remedy for the past lies not in hedonistic indulgences, that are inducing now another sort of deadly culture, but in rediscovering the faith and re-establishing the institution of the family.

“Freedom can, of course, destroy as well as to elevate a soul, depending whether the path of virtue or vice is taken.”

The First Anniversary of the Death of Patriarch Aleksei Rediger ...

This Saturday, we will mark the first anniversary of the death of Patriarch Aleksei Rediger of Moscow and all the Russias. On 4 December, the feast of the Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple, Patriarch Kirill served a Pannikhida at the tomb of the late First Hierarch at the Epiphany Cathedral in Moscow.

This is a memorial service, usually performed on Friday evenings, on the eve of Ancestors’ Saturdays, or on days that the whole Church commemorates the reposed in general. On the morning of 5 December, Patriarch Kirill will return to the same church to celebrate the liturgy, then, he will serve a Pannikhida at the grave of Patriarch Aleksei in the right side of the cathedral.

On this day, all Orthodox churches and monasteries will serve memorial liturgies for the repose of the soul of the late Patriarch Aleksei. Many parishes will hold commemorative events and exhibitions devoted to the departed patriarch.

The clergy and the faithful will remember Patriarch Aleksei, the First Hierarch of the Moscow Patriarchate during the most recent period in Russian history, a time that saw the revival of church life in the Motherland.

Today, the Museum of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour opened a new exhibition about the life and ministry of the reposed First Hierarch. It will present his personal belongings, and, on Saturday, viewers of TV Pervy Kanal (First Channel) will see the documentary Путь патриарха (Put Patriarkha: The Path of the Patriarch), dedicated to the memory of Patriarch Aleksei. In the film, figures such as Metropolitan Amfilohije Radović of Montenegro and Primorsky, the Patriarchal Locum Tenens of the Serbian Orthodox Church, and Patriarch Aleksei’s assistant, Nikolai Derzhavin, and TV presenter Aleksei Svetozarsky, who did holiday broadcasts from the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, shall give their recollections of the late First Hierarch.