Tallinn, July 14, 2025
Photo: globalestonian.com
In an interview with the Estonian news agency Eesti Ekspress, President of Estonia Alar Karis expressed his view that there is a growing tendency in his country to slap labels on people, and that this is basically an attempt to silence people in society.
He referred to the situation in Piukhtitsa Convent in Estonia, where authorities are demanding that the sisters either join the Estonian Church under the Constantinople Patriarchate, or lose their residency status in Estonia. This would lead to a mass exodus of nuns from the convent, since a great majority are against trampling on their canonical status as a stavropegic monastery under the Moscow Patriarchate.
“I don’t know what the nuns of the Piukhtitsa Convent are thinking. But I don’t like the slapping of labels on people. In a certain sense, this is a shutting of the mouth of society,” Karis said in response to the words of the Minister of Interior Affairs Igor Taro that the nuns are placing themselves in opposition to the Estonian state and consider themselves persecuted
Because of this labeling, people stop participating in the life of society, Karis said. “If I say something, if I decline some law, and they label me a Kremlin agent, that’s no great matter, I’ll survive it. But many others will simply keep to themselves, and no longer want to participate in the life of society—just because of these labels.”
President Karis has twice vetoed a law in Parliament aimed against the Estonian Christian Orthodox Church, which is autonomous under the Moscow Patriarchate, on grounds that proposed laws lack clarity and would be unconstitutional.
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