1

Prof. Hdr. Archim. Grigorios D. Papathomas

From conciliar ecclesial otherness and communion to two symmetrical deviations:

The National Church and the Ecclesial Absorption

(The case of the Ecclesial Absorption in the Baltic Countries, Estonia and Latvia,
in the name of “uniformity” of the National Church)1

When the IVth Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon (451), intending to oppose

monophysitic heresy, formulated its well known “definition of the faith”, known
throughout History as the “definition of Chalcedon”, it also expressed an antinomic
reality concerning (and which would concern) the “quod est” (the mode of being-
hypostasis) and the «“without confusion and without division” being» of the locally
established Churches throughout the Universe. The antinomic reality of the “quod est” of
these Churches had to perichoretically pass through two theological, ecclesiological, but
also canonical categories and realities, otherness (alterity) and communion. More
specifically, the existence of local or locally established Churches relies on both the
affirmation of their geo-ecclesiastical alterity and on the preservation of unity and
communion among them. In other words, the vision of the Council of Chalcedon was to
demand the simultaneous existence of ecclesial alterity and ecclesial communion as a
clearly antinomic realisation of the mode of the Trinitarian existence of locally
established Churches.

Throughout the centuries, this Chalcedonian vision of “being ecclesially in

concrete ontological alterity and in total ecclesial communion” underwent a double
alteration, so much so that in recent years, even today, the Orthodox Church has never
ceased being tempted by an isosceles and symmetric deviation: on one hand the
autonomisation of otherness, whose consequence is the depreciation of ecclesial
communion and of ecclesial isolationism, and on the other hand the alteration of
communion into confusion, whose consequence is the annihilation of alterity by
absorption. More analytically:

- This deviation is made up, on one hand, of a monistic anchorage of a locally

established Church in the principle of ethno-ecclesiastical alterity – rather than
geo-ecclesastical – of the people it represents and which has received the honor of
1
Paper presented at the 6 th International Colloquium, held in Höör, Sweden (25-27 August 2006) with
central theme “The notion of the National Church in Scandinavia and the Baltic countries”. Text published
in L’Année canonique, t. 48 (2006), p. 125-133, in Épiskepsis, t. 38, n° 680 (30/11/2007), p. 5-21
and 4-19 (bilingual: in Greek and in French respectivelly), in Synaxis, vol. 104 (10-12/2007), p.
25-36 (in Greek), in The Messenger [London], n° 5 (2/2008), p. 30-47, in Koinonia [London], n°
55 (2009), p. 42-58, in Usk ja Elu, t. 5 (1/2008), p. 23-43 (in Estonian), and in Inter [Cluj-
Napoca], t. II, n° 1-2 (2008), p. 484-495.
 2

the Patriarchy-Autocephaly-Autonomy, as applicable. This priority results in a

total indifference for ecclesial unity and communion.
- On the other hand, this deviation intentionally and excessively promotes ecclesial
communion in a country (of orthodox majority), doing so in the name of an
essentially ethno-phyletic form of unity, hidden behind the authority of the
Church. This has the immediate consequence of annihilating and absorbing the
ecclesial alterity of another neighbouring people – albeit an alterity already
guaranteed through canonical ecclesiastical jurisdiction – and, then, the
provocation of an anti-canonical incorporation of a locally established Church by
another, and, by extension, thereby causing the absoption of a locally established
Church by another, causing confusion (cf. canon 2/II) between the two locally
established Churches.

While the first kind of ecclesiological deviation, in relation to the “definition of

Chalcedon” can be observed in the modern “National Church” which, today, prospers –
and undermines – the Orthodox Church, the second kind of ecclesiological deviation, i.e.
the absorption of ecclesial otherness in the name of a broader mono-ethno-ecclesial
unity, is fully applied since 1945 in Estonia, in the Autonomous Church of Estonia (1923-
1945) and her relation to the Autocephalous-Patriarcal Church of Russia, but also in
Latvia by the Autonomous Church of Latvia (1936-1945) and her relation to the same
Church of Russia.

The first deviation, that of the “National Church”, is certainly present and visible
today principally in the anticanonical and ecclesiologically unacceptable claim of an
ecclesial body with a national tendency within the borders of the National State and, at
the same time, outside the National State, by exercising a global ethno-ecclesiastical
jurisdiction, on behalf of every Orthodox National Church across the world. This is from
where the recent contestation of the historical and canonical title of “Ecumenical” – as
applied to the “Ecumenical Patriarchate” of Constantinople – stems, since these claims,
devoid of all ecclesiological and canonical foundations, lead to the overturning of
canonical order delivered unto us (cf. Canonical Tradition) and inherited by us to this
day, with sole purpose of creating an multiple equi-jurisdictional regime across the
Universe for national(istic) profit. The result of this is well known. In the whole
Orthodox “Diaspora”, we find the ecclesiologically grotesque phenomenon of the
coexistence of (up to) eight orthodox ethno-ecclesiastical jurisdictions in the same place
and in the same city (cf. Paris, among others), completely undermining Chalcedonian
orthodoxy of (ecclesial) unity for each ecclesial locally established body.

And despite the blatancy of the problem, known to all orthodox people across the
world, they all exhibit a common weakness: although all agree the situation is
“ecclesiologically and canonically unacceptable”, they all cling to their “asset” of
hyperoria ethno-ecclesiastical jurisdiction as well as to its expansion, utterly indifferent to
the realisation of the Church herself in one given territory. It suffices to carefully read the
Statutory Charters of the National Orthodox Churches2 to confirm that, what here is

2
See our analysis published in the Review L’Année canonique, vol. 46 (2004), ch. III, p. 88 onwards (in
French), as well as in Synaxis, vol. 90 (4-6/2004), p. 37 onwards (in Greek).
 3

clearly considered ecclesiologically inadmissible by everyone, appears there – in the

Baltic Countries – as an obvious statutory conviction of the Church of Russia, and
everything it entails, and even more so when this supposed “asset” is established
statutorily. One statutory example is necessary here. “The jurisdiction of the Russian
Orthodox Church shall include persons of Orthodox confession living on the canonical
territory of the Russian Orthodox Church in Russia, Ukraine, Byelorussia, Moldavia,
Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kirghizia, Latvia, Lithuania, Tajikistan, Turkmenia,
Uzbekistan and Estonia, and also Orthodox Christians living in other countries and
voluntarily joining this jurisdiction”3.

As a little commentary to this statutory text, according to the Statutes of the

Church of Russia, we can say that Estonia (and Latvia) is not an independent State, and
consequently part of the “canonical territory” of the Russian Orthodox Church. That
means that other Orthodox Churches beside her do not exist and do not have right to exist
there any more. Through this position we can understand the problem we have in Baltic
Area, as the Orthodox Church of Russia does not recognise as a religious entity any other
Orthodox Churches and, by extension, Catholic nor Protestant Churches in this region.
All these Churches exist certainly, but on a Russian “canonical territory”. Also, it seems
that it is a problem from the point of view of the international public law, as these
Russian Statutes do not recognise Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania as independent States,
because they constitute part of “all Russias” of the ecclesiastical domain. In other words,
the Russian Orthodox Church does not recognise the independence and self-government
of these States as the Russian State do. And this is recorded within her Constitution. In
this case, how it is possible to have a National and Autocephalous-Patriarchal Church
who declares the territories of different independent States as her “canonical territory”
and uses official constitutional Statutes to claim these territories and to refuse at the same
time the existence of the other indigenous homodox Churches? Does an Autocephalous
and National Church have such a canonical or another similar right?

The reactivation of the Autonomy of the Orthodox Church of Estonia in 1996

resulted in a temporary break of ecclesial communion between the Ecumenical
Patriarchate and the Orthodox Church of Russia. It was solved by the Zurich agreement
on April 22, 1996, by which the existence of the Autonomous Orthodox Church of
Estonia as well as the Diocese of the Orthodox Church of Russia in Estonia were
mutually recognised. However, the Orthodox Church of Russia has never applied this
agreement until today. This inconsequent behaviour from her part reminds us the fable
about the Big People and Little People (see infra) – the big ones may disregard any
agreements. As the Autonomous Church of Estonia does not exist for the Russian
Orthodox Church, the agreement counts for nothing (nihil factum).

The Orthodox Church of Estonia exists as an Autonomous Church since 1923,

having been granted Autonomy by the Ecumenical Patriarchate in 1923 4, after the
3
Article I, § 3, Statutes of the Orthodox Church of Russia-2000 (Italics added by us).
4
Despite repeated affirmations on behalf of representatives from the Church of Russia, it should be pointed
out that Patriarch Tikhon of blessed memory only granted Estonians a larger internal autonomy of diocesan
form mainly in the domains of pastoral, education and economic administration, but never promulgated a
Tomos, and never granted a real and canonical Autonomy. The only Tomos of Autonomy is thus the one of
 4

ratification of the treaty of Tartu (2 February 1920), through which Russia recognised
Estonia’s independence. But subsequently, recently even, the Russian authorities, both
civil and ecclesiastical, orchestrally, never ceased to openly object. According to them,
the Estonian state exists only since 1991, and Stalin’s army never occupied the country.
Rather, it even liberated it from Nazism, and Estonia continues to be canonical territory
of the Patriarchate of Moscow, despite the fact that the Church of Estonia was never
included within the borders of the Tomos of Autocephaly (1589/1593) of the Church of
Russia. It should be emphasised here that according to the Tomos of Autonomy (1923),
from 1923 to 1945, all the Estonian Orthodox people, both Estonian and Russian, formed
a unique Church – that of EAÕK. Likewise, the Church’s Tomos of Autonomy was
reactivated by the Ecumenical Patriarchate in February 1996, after the troubled Soviet
period. Thus, it has now been ten years that the Orthodox Church of Russia fails to
recognise this Autonomous Church, according to her Statutes and canonisprudence,
since Estonia is considered to belong to her “cultural canonical territory” (sic). All the
above was presented here as a historical-canonical parenthetical commentary on the
constitutional text (2000) of the Russian national Church.

And despite all pre-conciliar theological declarations – of ecclesiological nature –,

the National Church continues to create dioceses everywhere, on the canonical territory
of other locally established Churches, not based on canonical arguments – for there are
none – but on arguments which are ethno-cultural, statutory and of sentimental nature,
creating the anti-ecclesiological theory, elaborated by herself, the theory of “cultural
canonical territory” (2000). Ultimately, what politics is no longer in a position to carry
out, due to international political engagements, is instead assumed by the National
Church under the cover of religion, by leading a purely political activity, despite their
distinct roles (ecclesiastical and political) having always been clearly defined. A recent
example amply highlights this: “In the frame of the close collaboration between the
Church and the ‘exterior political services of Russia’, officially instated after the year
2000, as acknowledged by the primate of the Russian Orthodox Church, the patriarch of
Moscow Alexis II, to the ministry of foreign affairs of the Russian Federation during a
reception on March 6th 2003: “We work hand in hand”5, he had said. This was confirmed
on February 15th 2006 by the minister of foreign affairs, Serge Lavrov, during a trip to
Vienna: “We are directing common actions with the Patriarchate of Moscow, in order to
advance the interests of Russia on the international scene”6”7. And the above occurs while

1923. Finally, if, just for a moment, we assume that the Russia’s recent tenacious claims that canonical
Autonomy was granted by Patriarch Tikhon (1920) are true, then clearly a new question has to be asked:
Why, after the invasion of Stalin’s troops (1944), was Autonomy dissolved so violently and brutally and,
immediately, the Autonomous Church of Estonia absorbed and replaced by a Russian Diocese under the
name “Russian Orthodox Diocese” (9 March 1945)? And if we presume that all this happened purely from
a political perspective and manu militari, why then was Autonomy not restored after 1991 by the
Patriarchate of Russia, having as Patriarch Alexis II, who, ecclesiastically, originated from Estonia?
Instead, in order to recover ecclesiastical proprieties and to convince Estonian authorities – without success
however – that this Diocese was the natural successor of the EAÕK, he proclaimed in 1993 a new
“autonomy” still of diocesan form, which was even more restrictive than that of Patriarch Tikhon.
5
SOP, no. 277 (4/2003), p. 19; SOP, no. 314 (1/2007), p. 17.
6
Quoted from the information agency Itar-Tass; SOP, no. 306 (3/2006), p. 9, and SOP, no. 314 (1/2007), p.
17.
7
SOP, no. 314 (1/2007), p. 17.
 5

blaming ‘Pre-Chalcedonian Churches’ for not accepting the “definition of Chalcedon”

while we, true to tradition… have… accepted and adopted it completely! We do not
realise that with such behaviour, not only do we remain Pre-Chalcedonian ourselves too,
but we even become anti-Chalcedonian!…

The second deviation however, the assimilation-incorporation-merging-

absorption of ecclesial otherness of a people in the name of an incoherent and fictive
ecclesial unity for clearly ethnocentric priorities and purposes, remains hidden and
unnoticed to this day, as if bearing out the words of our wise ancestors, that “truth is
difficult to perceive”. Who, today, clearly understands the hardship undergone by the
locally established Orthodox Churches in Estonia as well as Latvia the last fifty years,
when the intervention of Stalin’s troops (1944) brutally and anti-canonically abolished
the Autonomy of the Church of Estonia (1923-1945) and the Autonomy of the Church of
Latvia (1936-1945) through coerced incorporation and conscious absorption? And all
this with the complicity (Acts 7, 60) – if not under the direction – of the Patriarchate of
Moscow, which claims to adhere to Chalcedonian Orthodoxy. This purely political
attempt of nationally assimilating (russification) Orthodox Estonians and Latvians and
enslaving them to the Russian Patriarchate, an attempt done in the name of ecclesial unity
despotically ‘proposed’ by the Russian multi-ethnic Church, is therefore responsible for
the absorption of the Autonomy of a Church and of the ecclesial alterity of a small people
in its first steps of geo-state emancipation in Estonia or in Latvia (1920-1945). The
weight of a large people, putting in work an ideological and strategic mechanisms and
using violence for domination, imposes the conditions of public order and public life.
And so the smaller people lose its valuable and barely obtained rights, one at a time
(freedom, civil and state emancipation, ecclesial alterity and Autonomy). It is then the
justice of the strong which writes History. And now, in all our tolerance, the
aforementioned History teaches us the “justice” of the strong… leaving the weaker
people in the wrong, victims of injustice… but in this way, are we not “accomplices in
crimes” (Acts 7, 60) done to a small and weak people?

In the Baltic countries, this situation reminds us of the Hellenic “myth of the weak
and the powerful”. Politically, this myth finds its counterpart in History; indeed, this is
why it came to be.

(This is also what Greece lived through during its turbulent history, when a
handful of Greeks rose against the Ottomans to achieve much sought-after freedom, i.e.
same freedom which was unattainable for Estonia and Latvia during fifty years of soviet
occupation. At that time (19th c.), the Austrian Metternich and the three great powers
(England, France and [not accidentally] Russia) used the same argument: the large and
powerful, though “feeble”, is just, since he is large and has the majority on his side. The
small and weak is the ill-willed rebel, who upsets the status quo, and is thus by definition
unfair. And so, by letting things be, we accept that only the powerful have the right of
living, while the weak must be incorporated, assimilated and must disappear!...).

Despite the fact that this tenacious myth is not theologically in conformity with
the Eschatological nature of the Church. But finally, this myth finds applications within
 6

the space of the Church. Indeed, on an ecclesiastical level, according to ethno-

ecclesiastical arguments, the Autonomy of the Church of Estonia – and that of the Church
of Latvia – never existed in the first place, for the same reasons that “the Baltic states did
not exist” (sic) and therefore it is not possible to speak of the abolishment and the
absorption of the ecclesial Autonomy, simply because Estonia has always been the
Russian Church’s canonical territory (sic). “For this reason, everything established by
Estonian orthodoxy in its fertile years of free existence and of the Autonomy (1923-1940)
had to by russified and be entered into the “Mother Church” (sic), which proclaimed –
with no circumlocutions: “Everyone who is Lutheran is Estonian; Everyone who is
Orthodox is Russian”… In this phrase implicitly lies the dogma of the russification of the
Orthodox Estonian people, but also the betrayal of Chalcedonian Orthodoxy.
Consequently, according to this dogma, Orthodox people in Estonia8 are only (can only
be) Russian or, more precisely, for one to be Orthodox there, one must be Russian. The
Estonian people9 therefore had to renounce their national identity to become, or at least to
appear, Russian”10. And for a long time, an unrelenting struggle took place to russify the
Autonomy of the Church of Estonia and as far the Autonomy of the Church of Latvia, led
mainly by ecclesiastical personalities. In the process it destroyed, along with the
Autonomy, anything locally established by Estonian and Latvian Orthodoxy, and
endeavours, even to this day, to complete what it has begun, to claim all that remains
from those dark years of ideological servitude and of ecclesiastical alienation and
ecclesial absorption… And so, the Church of Russia liquidated and absorbed, abolished
and assimilated the Autonomous Churches of the Baltic countries, Churches which
belong, canonically, to the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, and which from it
received their Ecclesiastical Autonomy (20th c.). This is also the reason, beside all other
canonical reasons, that the Ecumenical Patriarchate has received into his ecclesiastical
jurisdictional competencies – by reactivation of the Tomos of Autonomy (1996) – the
Orthodox Estonians who, themselves, were not accepted the prolongation of the political
domination through the submission of their Church to the Church of Russia. Today, this
Church openly protests that the Ecumenical Patriarchate is intervening in the Baltic
territories, territories which were justly returned to the Autonomous Churches (Estonia)
to which they belonged before the military soviet occupation, and under whose
jurisdiction they belong ecclesiastically.

Obviously, the relation linking Russia to the Baltic Countries predated the Soviet
Union. Thus the Soviets of the 20th century certainly never forgot the two centuries of the
tsar’s dominion in these countries; in any case, they were always seeking to extend their
influence towards the west. And in spite of internal ideological differences between the
two diachronic political tendencies, the ambition of expanding their influence towards the
west remains a common denominator for both.

However, recently a new element has arisen which changes things significantly
and makes a decisive difference. From 1991 onwards, no Russian politico-institutional
8
See also, “In the Baltic Countries”.
9
See also, “Orthodox people of the Baltic Countries”.
10
Extract from the article by the Metropolitan of Tallinn and of all of Estonia STEPHANOS, “Our relation to
the Patriarchate of Moscow” in weekly Newspaper TO BHMA [Athens], no. 14706/5-3-2006, p. A44/88 (in
Greek).
 7

claim to the Baltic territories can be justified whatsoever, since these now permanently
constitute independent states, officially recognised by the global community and the
European States. Therefore, there is only one possibility left for exerting influence
towards the west: a Russian Orthodox Church!…, conforming to the actual model which
has a particular resounding within the Orthodox world of the post-soviet epoch, the
model of the National Church and its consequences. Here is why it is now necessary to
adopt the new ecclesiastical theory of “canonical cultural territory” – precisely because,
due to political conjunctures, what the state is no longer able to carry out on an
international level through its ideological mechanism, is now carried out by the
homonymous National Church…

Returning to the myth of the “weak and the powerful”, though it has political
resonances, how far can it be related to the Church and her Ecclesiology? What is the
relation between this political myth and Chalcedonian orthodoxy? For indeed there is
one, as even in the ecclesiastical sphere itself it would seem that the political argument of
majority has a significant weight – a founder characteristic of the theory of the Third
Rome11. However, as far as the definition of Chalcedon is concerned, otherness (alterity)
is an ontological category, whilst majority is clearly a political and an eonistic category,
confined to the created and its ephemerality. This is why the essential priority of
Chalcedon, for the founding of a Church, is alterity and not majority, while for the
Patriarchate of Russia, as it is obvious by now, the majority (of political or ecclesiastical
power) decides the fate of a Church and not synodal alterity. To further prove the point,
the absolute priority of alterity as a prerequisite condition for communion was
institutionalised, after Chalcedon, by the subsequent Quinisext Ecumenical Council in
Trullo (691, canon 39). And so today, in reality, Chalcedonian conciliar truth as well as
Quinisext canonical ecclesiality has, consciously or unconsciously, volentes nolentes,
been essentially overturned and abolished.

A historical detail deserves to be told here. Despite all these, the Orthodox Church
of Russia did not attain to shatter everything, which was substituted of the EAÕK.
Indeed, in 1978, the actual Patriarch Alexis II (who was baptised within this Autonomous
Church of Estonia), at that time Metropolitan of Tallinn chef of the Diocese of Estonia of
the Patriarchate of Russia – and not the Patriarchate of Moscow as the deliberate
anticanonical theory of the “Third Rome” 12 would have it –, addressed himself to the
Ecumenical Patriarchate to ask for the suppression of the Tomos of the Autonomy of
1923 for reasons of… ecclesial unity (sic). But the Patriarchate of Constantinople, due to
11
See below.
12
The canonical order of the Church does not enumerate locally established Churches in her Diptychs, and
places the locally established Church of Alexandria after New Rome-Constantinople [and by no means
Second Rome-Constantinople, as it is repeatedly and erroneously labeled], and not a hypothetical “Third
Rome” (sic) as a “historic cure” of the previous two – which in this logic could be relieved by a Forth or a
Fifth Rome… Ultimately, this poses a question: Why the obsession – and this is a unique occurrence – to
use the name of a city in the title of the Patriarchate of Russia and not the title which derives from the name
of the country in which the locally established Church is found, as is the case with other new Patriarchates
(e.g. Patriarchate of Romania and not Patriarchate of Bucharest, Patriarchate of Georgia and not
Patriarchate of Tiflida, etc); The Patriarchate of Russia, however, is the only one which has adopted, at a
given time, this type of designation – for reasons which are by now understood – and persistently insists on
its use.
 8

the political situation at the time, and only for the Orthodox Estonians living into the
Country and not for those who were in exile, simply suspended13 – not suppressed – the
Tomos, which he once again puts into effect shortly after, in 1996, after public civil order
has been completely restored in Estonia (since 1991). However, his recourse to the
Patriarchate of Constantinople signifies that he recognised that jurisdiction over the
Church of Estonia is held by the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Secondly, this act confirms the
whole prior grotesque attempt to assimilate and ecclesially absorb Estonia and, by
extension, the Baltic States. And thirdly, if the Metropolitan Alexis of Tallinn had
obtained the ‘benediction’ of the competent jurisdictional entity – he went as far as using
this means –, this benediction would have ‘facilitated’, in the eyes of the Estonians, the
process of russification which had begun in 1945… After all this, how can one say that
the Ecumenical Patriarchate has no ecclesiastical jurisdiction over Estonia and the Baltic
countries? And the Primate of the Church of Russia himself, still the same now as then,
twenty years after 1978, seems surprised and perplexed that it should be possible for the
Ecumenical Patriarchate to reactivate the Autonomy (1996) of the Orthodox Church of
Estonia14, “invading on canonical territory” (sic) of the Church of Russia…

To avoid overextending this text, a comparison here is pertinent. Despite the

brutal dissolution and anti-canonical absorption of the Church of Estonia in 1945, she has
never ceased to exist historically and canonically, for the same reason that this did not
happen to the Church of Albania. Violence and anti-canonicity can never destroy a
Church locally established, much less her otherness. Everyone applauds the rebirth of the
Autocephalous Church of Albania. In the case of the Church of Estonia, however, some
are apprehensive, for the previously mentioned reasons, although the two cases appear to
be the same – yet there is a small difference. In Albania, the abolishers were atheists, so it
was easy to blame them. In Estonia, the abolishers were our Russian orthodox brothers
so, by definition, they… have justice on their side and we are loath to blame them. At this
point, the people of the whole Europe can really comprehend the problem…

Finally, to illustrate the extent to which truth can be twisted, it is necessary to

make a remark. In 1923, the procedure leading to the international community’s
recognition of Estonia as an independent state was accomplished. This process took
practically three years (1920-1923): from the ratification of the treaty of Tartu (2
February 1920), which was also signed by Russia, to 1923, the year when the United
States are the last country to recognize Estonia as an independent state. The Ecumenical
Patriarchate, in the same year (1923), granted Autonomy – as for Estonia, immediately
after its recognition by the United States – to two locally established Churches, both
following the same historic course in relation to their neighbouring country, Russia: the
Church of Finland, and the Church of Estonia – followed by the Church of Latvia a few
years later (1936). In fact, looking back in time, the Byzantine people 15, considering the
13
See the Patriarchal and Synodal Act of 13 April 1978, deciding the momentary suspension of the Tomos
of 1923, in Istina, vol. 49, n° 1 (2004), p. 95.
14
Cf. Metropolitan of Tallinn and of all of Estonia STEPHANOS, “Our relation to the Patriarchate of
Moscow”, op. cit.
15
The Byzantine people are the “christener” of the geographical name of the northern region (Baltic region,
Baltic sea), identifying it by its geomorphologic situation: in Greek, “baltic” land signifies the land
composed of “baltos” (= marsh), because of its numerous shallow lakes on territorially flat land. As an
 9

northern European territories from a geographical perspective, called the Baltic Countries
as “the north ‘beyond Russia’”, a fact which also determines jurisdictionally
(canonically) Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Finland. Consequently, these countries,
apart from the period of forced military occupation by the Russians, were never part of
Russia’s territory historically, and certainly not part of the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of
the Patriarchate of Russia.

So, here is a question. Why, then, is there no question posed about the
jurisdictional presence of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Finland, which is even further
away, beyond the Baltic Sea and the gulf of Bothnia, but there is one for the Estonia and
the Baltic Countries? Knowledge of a particular detail is the key to understanding this
difference. In Finland, there was no successful Russian invasion, despite attempts, and
Stalinism was never imposed and did not create a new order of things, by spreading
russification… Furthermore, the Archbishop of Finland did not become… Patriarch of
Moscow to call for the annexation of Finland into the Church of Russia, with all the
ensuing manifestations of sentimentalism and emotion seen after the reinstatement of the
Autonomy of the Church of Estonia (1996). And finally, why should the Church of
Finland have the canonical right to exist as an Autonomous Church and not the Church of
Estonia? Why is there no issue of submission to the Ecumenical Patriarchate for the
Church of Finland, but there is one for the Church of Estonia? Why today the Church of
Russia recognises the Autonomous Church of Finland (even if she did only since
1958…), but she do not recognises the Autonomous Church of Estonia? This is why all
the aforesaid can be applied here; today we are reading the history of Estonia as written
by the “righteousness” of the powerful, the conqueror – who is now re-offending…
Again and again today (2007), the non-recognition of the Autonomous Church of Estonia
by the Patriarchate of Russia, with giving the exclusivity of ecclesial existence of the
Russian Diocese of Tallinn of this Patriarchate, is effected in the same perspective: the
absorption of the Autonomous Church of Estonia nowadays (new effort which dates from
1996), as well as it was exactly at the Soviet epoch (since 1945). Furthermore, the whole
issue has instilled a procedure determined more by sentimental and historical reflexes and
an underlying nostalgia for dominion, than by current geo-ecclesiastical conjuncture. It is
about time for the Patriarchate of Russia – after its failure finally of the ecclesial
absorption – to put an end to its unfair and unjustifiable aggressive stance of colonialistic
nature and anticanonical perspective against the Orthodox Autonomous Church of
Estonia, which bears no relation to Ecclesiology and the Canonical Tradition of the
Church. And now, given the Patriarchate of Moscow’s ecclesial absorption of Church of
Estonia, which lasted 50 years (194516-199517), the former must now answer to the
example, in the whole world, Estonia is the 3 rd country, after Sweden and Finland, having most marshland
(“baltos”), thereby earning the Greek (Byzantine) name of Baltic. This information is eloquent, and if we
“keep quiet, the marshlands will cry out” (cf. Luke 19, 40). Indeed, conforming to the Estonian national
and historical Archives, a Byzantine missionary activity has been confirmed in 1030 (just 40 years after the
baptism of the Russian) in the Baltic countries, notably in Estonia.
16
The year of the violent, arbitrary and anti-canonical dissolution of the structure of the Autonomous
Church of Estonia (9 March 1945), with the support of political power, and, in its place, the establishment
of a Diocese directly dependent on the Patriarchate of Russia.
17
Year of the last Orthodox Estonian appeal to the Patriarch of Russia Alexis II, to recover their absorbed
ecclesiastical autonomy, before finally turning to the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I who canonically
reactivated the Patriarchal and Conciliar Tomos of 1923 (24/02/1996).
 10

ecclesial pan-orthodox conscience, and to the whole of Christianity, indeed to all of the
history of humanity, for this anti-conciliar, anti-chalcedonian and anti-canonical act…

To conclude, in 1991 Estonia once again recovers its political independence. The
Tomos of Autonomy is reactivated on 24/02/1996. However, at the same time, the
Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, by economy, grants the Orthodox Church of
Russia the possibility of continuing to maintain her own ecclesiastical jurisdiction (treaty
of Zurich, 22/04/1996), in the hope that one day there would be only one Orthodox
Church in Estonia, as was the case before the brutal dissolution and absorption in 1945.

For more on all which has briefly been discussed here, and for other important
matters which piece together the puzzle of the ecclesiological issue in Estonia and the
Baltic Countries, we refer the reader to – let us be forgiven for it – a small bibliography:

- A special book in Greek, the first of this kind, of Nicholas I. Dovas, The Estonian
ecclesiastical Question as an Inter-orthodox Question, Thessaloniki, ed.
“Brothers Kyriakidis”, 2000, 106 p., in which we see for the first time the
publication of official documents concerning this profoundly theological problem
in the Baltic Countries.
- A bilingual book (English-French) published in Greece four years ago entitled:
Archim. Grigorios D. Papathomas - R. P. Mattias H. Palli (under the direction of),
The Autonomous Orthodox Church of Estonia/L’Église autonome orthodoxe
d’Estonie, Thessalonica-Katerini, ed. Epektasis (coll. “Nomocanonical Library”,
no. 11), 2002, 460 p. In this book one finds thirty-five (35) documents and texts
which reveal the truth outlined above, from 1923 until 2002, as well as self-
contained seven (7) scientific studies (by two professors from Estonia, two from
Finland and three from Greece) about the Estonian ecclesiastical problem.
- A recent special issue of the famous French theological periodical, Review of
Istina, centred exclusively on this thorny issue, with a precise and impressive
analysis: “The defence of the Orthodox Church of Estonia’s Autonomy against
the Patriarchate of Moscow” (“Le plaidoyer de l’Église orthodoxe d’Estonie pour
la défense de son autonomie face au Patriarcat de Moscou”), in Istina, vol. 49, no.
1 (2004), p. 3-105.

All of these specialised and scientific ad hoc studies have not as yet been
contested by the Russian ecclesiastical side, neither in their basic historical and canonical
approach, nor in their more specific aspects.

*****

(N.B. Just prior to sending the present text for publication, an official public
declaration was made by the Church of Russia about the Autonomous Church of Estonia,
during the meeting of the “Joint International Commission for the Theological Dialogue
between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church” on the 9 th of October in
Ravenna, by her delegate Mgr Hilarion (Alfeyev), before leaving the hall of the reunion.
This declaration was subsequently reiterated in an interview broadcast over the internet
 11

on the 18 October18. The author of this study was eyewitness to this statement (it was not
the Primate of the Church, Metropolitan Stephan of Tallinn and of all Estonia, as the
press reported erroneously) which was subsequently diffused through the Russian news
state agency InterFax, on 10 October. Thus statement included two crucial elements:
“[…] [1] The so-called Autonomous Church of Estonia only exists since 1996 and [2]
this Church was founded by the Patriarchate of Constantinople on the canonical territory
of the Patriarchate of Moscow”19. Conforming to what has been said herein, and as
everyone can check, this declaration has no historical or principally canonical basis, and
puts in doubt the credibility of the position held by the Church of Russia towards the
Church of Estonia, and of the various unofficial declarations the ecclesiastical authorities
have made until now. It is evident that the delegate of the Church of Russia confuses two
canonical realities which are chronologically and canonically clearly distinct: the
“Tomos” (1923) and the “Reactivation of the Tomos” (1996). The Tomos proclaiming the
Church of Estonia indeed dates back to 1923, whilst the reactivation of the Tomos,
suspended in 1978, dates back to 1996. It is clear that the reactivation of a Tomos does
not canonically create a locally established Church. It is the promulgation of the Tomos
which exclusively grants such a status of Autonomy. And the Tomos historically and
canonically dates back to 1923, as was the case of the Autonomous Church of Finland.
After all, an army does not create canonical territory…

The famous Russian theologist G. Florovsky pertinently said that “he who knows
not History, cannot practice Theology”. Next to Theology, I would personally add
Canonical Tradition. Moreover, one could wonder about the importance the uninterrupted
Ecclesial Praxis in the comprehension of Canonical Tradition; the Church of Russia,
Christianised at the end of the first Millennium (from 988), has inherited this Tradition,
but was relatively late in following its teachings. Numerous events in the history of the
Church of Russia show that the assimilation of this Great Tradition is not fully
achieved20. This fact also explains the flagrant political implications of the Church of
Russia and the anti-Chalcedonian confusion of the state policy with the ecclesiastical
domain. This remark is also explained by Mgr Hilarion’s contention that the meeting of
Ravenna (8-14 October 2007) was a failure, because the Church of Russia, who is
“majoritarily the largest” (sic) was not present. And this, despite the positive conclusions
of the work of the Joint Commission, already highlighted in the final communiqué issued
jointly by the two delegations, Roman Catholic and Orthodox (14 October). If we remind
ourselves of certain declarations on behalf of certain Russian ecclesiastical authorities
about the caducity of Ecclesial Canons, which, seemingly, no longer correspond to the
modern age, we observe that the Church of Russia’s lack of experience of the
ecclesiastical and canonical praxis of the first millennium risks deforming the integrity
and the coherence of the one and unique orthodox presence, by gradually introducing the
idea that Orthodoxy may be a sort of Confederation of Ethnic Churches, and no longer an
18
See www.orthodoxie.com, 18/10/2007.
19
Ibid.
20
One must remember the unrelenting fashion with which the Church of Russia bargained for the
patriarchal title of her Primate, or how it extended her jurisdiction over all of Ukraine in the 17 th-18th
centuries, soon after the annexation of the whole Ukrainian territory by tsarist Russia (this question could in
itself be the subject of an appropriate ecclesiological and canonical study), before arriving at the anti-
chalcedonian dissolution and absorption of the Baltic Orthodox Churches, etc…
 12

Ecclesial Body spread across the Universe. Such a vision and such a federative
realisation of the Church will one day lead each Orthodox National Church to fatally
develop its own theology at the peril of permanently shattering the two millennium old
theological and patristic heritage of the Orthodox Church. In face of this risk, which is
becoming increasingly evident, the Orthodox theologians present at Ravenna,
unanimously, were not swayed by the attitude of the Patriarchate of Russia with regard to
the Autonomous Orthodox Church of Estonia. And for this reason, the bilateral dialogue
really unfolded under normal and positive conditions, despite the departure of the
Russian delegation, and the excused absence of the Bulgarian delegation).

*****

Europe has always been sensitive to issues which it itself has suffered throughout
history. This sensitivity concerns the historical existence of small people and, by
extension, minor Churches. Every time that this existence and its historical foundation are
jeopardised, the question of freedom and of communion simultaneously, i.e. the
Autonomy, in other words, the Chalcedonian affirmation of alterity, will always and in all
places remain inseparable from the revendication of truth, both human and theological.
Orthodox people, but also Christians in general, have a taste of this experience. However,
the voice of the Estonian peasant to the French Catholic missionary Charles Bourgeois in
the spring of 1946, i.e. one and a half year after the invasion of Stalin’s troops in Estonia,
saying:

«We are such a small country which owes nothing to anything or anyone, and
which asks for nothing more than to remain free […] So please, when you see
these free people, tell them how much we suffer here. We were happy, free, and
asked for nothing from anybody. And now they have taken away everything, and
there is no way for our voice to be heard»21,

has a timeless weight both in Estonia, this great small land, and in the Baltic countries, as
well as in Europe and the whole world, and one needs Salomonian discernment and
Chalcedonian presuppositions for this voice to be heard, and much more so to be
understood…

Conclusion

The present testimonial, with the help of the systematic and canonical theology of
the IVth Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon (451), takes a closer look at the problem of
ecclesial absorption – occurring in the Baltic Countries – of the Autonomy of the Church
of Estonia and Latvia in the name of the “uniformity” of the National Church, and in our
case of the Russian National Church. For fifteen years now, this situation places a burden
on inter-orthodox relationships on a global level. The problem is approached and

21
VASSILY (Hieromonk [Charles BOURGEOIS, s.j.]), Ma rencontre avec la Russie (Narva-Esna-Tartu-
Moscou) 1932-1946, (My encounter with Russia (Narva-Esna-Tartu-Moscow) 1923-1946), Buenos Aires
1953, p. 101 and 146 respectively.
 13

analysed through two theological, ecclesiological and canonical categories, alterity

(otherness) and communion, which are based on the antinomical conciliar formula of a
union “without confusion and without division”. More precisely, the ecclesiological
vision of the Council of Chalcedon was the simultaneous coexistence of ecclesial
otherness and communion as clearly antinomical accomplishment of the mode of
Trinitarian existence of locally established Churches. It naturally emerges that the
existence of locally established Churches is realised through the acceptance of their geo-
ecclesiastical otherness and the preservation of unity and communion among them.

The depth study of this question leads to the observation that, in general, a double
symmetric divergence occurs: on one hand, the autonomisation of otherness leading to
the minorisation of communion, and on the other hand, the alienation of communion
causing confusion, and leading to the absorption of otherness – following an
anticanonical incorporation of one locally established Church within another. In other
words, in the first case, priority is given to being “without confusion” at the detriment of
being “without division” (communion), whereas in the second case, most prominent and
blatant in the Baltic Countries (the case of the Autonomy of the Church of Estonia in
1923, and the Church of Latvia in 1936), we observe the predominance of “without
division” and the total abolition of “without confusion” (otherness-autonomy). From a
theological and ecclesio-canonical perspective, it is precisely this latter point that
describes, within the Orthodox Church across the Universe, today’s double problem,
which appeared – and continues to develop – during the 20th century in the north of
Europe (on the noetic vertical line between the western borders of the ex-USSR and the
European Union: Karelia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Moldavia).

Summary

In this paper, the author provides a theological analysis of the relationship

between the Orthodox Church of Russia and the Orthodox Church of Estonia (into which,
as he points out, Patriarch of Russia Alexis II was originally baptised). Taking as his
starting point the Chalcedonian formula regarding the dual nature – in one person – of
Christ, he argues that the Church, as the Body of Christ, enshrines in its very nature a
combination of otherness (alterity) and communion, and that these essential
characteristics are equally and symmetrically undermined by the twin distortions of
ecclesiastical nationalism and ‘ecclesial absorption’. Special reference is made to the
cases of Estonia and Latvia, where ‘ecclesial absorption’ has taken place in the name of
the uniformity of the National Church (of Russia). The paper was given at the Sixth
International Colloquium, held in Höör, Sweden (25-27 August 2006) with central theme
‘The notion of the National Church in Scandinavia and the Baltic Countries’. It has been
edited for publication in the Review L’Année canonique [Paris], t. 48 (2006), p. 125-133.