Estonia | Estonian Minister of the Interior: Moscow Patriarchate to be declared a terrorist organization

Estonian Minister of the Interior Lauri Läänemets proposes to declare the Orthodox Church under the Moscow Patriarchate a terrorist organization. The purpose is thus to cut the ties of the churches operating in Estonia to Moscow.

“I propose to the parliament that it declares the Moscow Patriarchate's activities as terrorist and supporting terrorism. Based on that, I will take the matter to court and propose to stop the activities of the ecclesiastical organization operating here (under the Moscow Patriarchate), Läänemets told the Estonian Broadcasting Corporation, ERRin an interview on Thursday evening.

The reason for the proposal is the end of March of the Moscow Patriarchate declaration, according to which Russia is waging a holy war against Ukraine and also more broadly against the West. Radio has reported on the declaration, among others Svoboda and Newsweek.

“The Islamist terrorists say exactly the same, that they have a holy war against the Western world and its values. The Moscow-based patriarch is no longer different from Islamist terrorists,” said Interior Minister Läänemets.

Läänemetsän the proposal became the most read on the Russian search service Yandex on Friday morning. Spokesman of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Maria Zakharova comment on the matter freshly Izvestija:

“All the signs of mental illness are there,” Zaharova said.

Russia's reaction was hardly a surprise in Estonia, where the war has raised concerns about the influence of the Moscow Patriarchate on members of local churches.

HS told in February, that for security reasons Estonia did not renew the metropolitan who led the church under Moscow Yevgeni residence permit.

of Moscow The Orthodox Church under it was born as a result of the Soviet occupation of Estonia. It has about 150,000 members, which is almost five times more than the Orthodox Church under Constantinople in Estonia. Two Orthodox churches are at odds with each other.

Because the Patriarch of Moscow Kirill strongly supported by the president Vladimir Putin and the war of aggression against Ukraine, Estonia has tried to reduce the influence of the church.

According to Läänemetsä, all congregations can continue their activities and all have freedom of religion, but the connection with the Moscow Patriarchate must be severed. He has brought as a model the separation of thirty congregations from the Moscow Patriarchate in Moldova.

In 2022, for example, the Parliament of Latvia passed a law according to which the country's Orthodox Church must be completely independent from Moscow.

of Moscow On Tuesday, the Estonian Orthodox Church responded negatively to the minister's proposal to break away from the Moscow Patriarchate.

“If someone thinks that direct orders are given from Moscow, then this is not the case. There is a canonical connection”, explained the bishop representing the church Daniel on Tuesday ERRfor.

Bishop Daniel appealed to the fact that the Orthodox Church in Estonia cannot be responsible for the church's activities in Russia. Nor has it accepted the declaration of the end of March on holy war.

Patriarch Kirill's message has an effect regardless of what is said in the churches, says Interior Minister Läänemets.

“We know that in crises, people sometimes trust church leaders more than the government,” said Läänemets to ERR.

The Orthodox Church has especially attracted the Russian-speaking population of Estonia. At the same time, Estonians have become more secular and the traditional Evangelical Lutheran church has not had any attraction in modern Estonia.

The best-known Orthodox churches under the Moscow Patriarchate are the Nevsky Cathedral in Tallinn's old town, across from the Estonian Parliament building, and the church in the suburb of Lasnamäki, which was partly completed with Russian funding in 2013.