Estonia, October 9, 2024
Bp. Daniil of Tartu. Photo: err.ee
A secular state has no competency to deal with canonical matters and should stop trying to dictate the Church’s status, says a bishop of the Estonian Orthodox Church.
The Estonian state has been pressuring the Church, which is a self-governing body within the Moscow Patriarchate, since the war broke out in Ukraine in February 2022, though it has never produced any evidence that the Church poses a threat to state security.
The Estonian primate, His Eminence Metropolitan Evgeny of Tallinn, was expelled from the country, the authorities have demanded several times that the Church pass judgment on statements from Patriarch Kirill, and most significantly, the state is trying to force the Church to sever its canonical ties to the Moscow Patriarchate and come under the Patriarchate of Constantinople’s Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church.
In August, the Council of the Estonian Church responded to state demands by amending Church statutes to reflect its complete administrative independence. All mention of the Moscow Patriarchate was removed save a reference to the 1993 tomos from His Holiness Patriarch Alexei II granting the Church its self-governing status.
However, the Ministry of Internal Affairs has, through media statements and a formal letter to Vicar Bishop Daniil of Tartu, announced that it is dissatisfied with the changes.
Ministry Chancellor Tarmo Miilits accused the Church of making only cosmetic changes. “The actual influence of the Moscow Patriarchate remains the same both in the administrative and canonical sense,” he wrote, based on his analysis of the canonical reality laid out by the 1993 tomos.
The bishops of the Estonian Church are currently preparing another response to the Ministry.
In a recent interview, Bp. Daniil emphasized how, in its discussion with the Estonian Church, the state switches between referring to state legislation in some instances, and to Church canon law in others, reports err.ee.
“But if we’re talking about Church canon law, there can be different understandings even between Churches,” the hierarch explained.
And in canonical matters, the Church should, of course, have the right to decide. “There shouldn’t be such prescriptions from a secular state about what’s canonically correct. The secular state doesn’t have such authority,” Bp. Daniil emphasized.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs insists that the Estonian Church declare that it is completely leaving the Moscow Patriarchate, while Bp. Daniil notes that the Church can’t take such a step on its own, which, he argues would place the Church in canonical limbo.
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