Statement of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church 8 November 2000

STATEMENT
OF THE HOLY SYNOD OF THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH
8 November 2000

It is with regret and anxiety for the fate of Orthodox unity that the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church expresses its profound concern over the recent actions of Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople in Estonia, which turned backwards the process of agreed solution of the problems pertaining to the ecclesiastical situation in the country.

Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople paid an official visit to Estonia from 26 October to 1 November 2000 accompanied by Archbishop John of Karelia and All Finland, hierarchs and clergy of the Finnish Archdiocese of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople did not notify Patriarch Alexy of Moscow and All Russia of his intention to pay a visit to Estonia, the canonical territory of the Moscow Patriarchate. The Russian Orthodox Church received an official communication of the visit of the Patriarch of Constantinople to Estonia from the head of the Lutheran Evangelical Church of Estonia.

Having received information on the forthcoming visit, the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate tried that the visit of Patriarch Bartholomew to Estonia to put an end to the four-years-long confrontation between the jurisdictions of the two Churches in Estonia. The negotiations were held with plenipotentiary representatives of the Patriarchate of Constantinople and the government of the Estonian Republic for the sake of complete reconciliation among all Orthodox Christians and the quickest restoration of equal rights of all Orthodox parishes, including the right to historical church property. This could have found its expression in a joint declaration by the heads of the two Orthodox jurisdictions in Estonia. Yet Constantinople refused to discuss the proposed initiatives with provisions for the return of legal rights to the historical church property to the parishes of the Estonian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, which has possessed this property (18 churches and premises of church administration) for centuries and is actually using it at present.

The way of peace was rejected by Patriarch Bartholomew and Metropolitan Stephan, who heads the structure of Constantinople in Estonia. Therefore the Estonian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, which numbers over 100.000 believers, did not take part in canonical contacts with the delegation, which arrived in Estonia headed by Patriarch Bartholomew, considering him responsible for the schism of the Orthodox community in Estonia. The Orthodox members of the parliament of the Estonian Republic testified that ‘the expectations of the believers for the visit of Patriarch Bartholomew to Estonia to normalize religious activities of the Orthodox parishes on the legal basis have not been met’. The deputies expressed their concern for the actions of the Patriarch of Constantinople, which bring about ‘the division of Orthodox Christians along the ethnic lines.’

Orthodox Christians were deeply confused by the canonically inadmissible action timed by the visit of Patriarch Bartholomew to Estonia, namely, the decree by the Patriarchate of Constantinople on the canonization of Bishop Platon of Revel, an Estonian hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, who had been canonized earlier according to the canonical rules of the Russian Orthodox Church. In August 2000 the Jubilee Bishops’ Council of the Russian Orthodox Church by its action resolved to canonize Bishop Platon of Revel as a new martyr and confessor. The rite of canonization was solemnly performed in the Church of Christ the Saviour in Moscow on 20 August 2000 in the presence of the delegation of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. As is known, Bishop Platon of Revel died as a martyr on 14 January 1919 being a vicar bishop of the Riga diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church. He had never been a clergyman of the Patriarchate of Constantinople.

During his visit to Estonia Patriarch Bartholomew said the following at official meetings and in the mass media:

1) the Russian Church interprets the agreements reached in Zurich in May 1996 between the two Churches pertaining to the ecclesiastical situation in Estonia in a wrong way. It is impossible to interpret this agreement as a ‘decision, which allows the existence of the two parallel jurisdictions in Estonia’;
2) the parishes under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate in Estonia should be subordinated to their Local Church in the form of ‘an exarchate’ (representation) or church representations;
3) there can be only one Metropolitan or Archbishop in Estonia with the title ‘of All Estonia’, with an ‘exarch’ (representative) for the parishes subordinate to the Russian Orthodox Church;
4) ‘the Moscow Patriarchate has no grounds to seek the right of succession in Estonia’;
5) the Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church of the Patriarchate of Constantinople is the legal successor in Estonia and provides guidance of Orthodoxy on the whole territory of the country;
6) ‘the Moscow Patriarchate should remove Archbishop Kornily from his office’.

To regard these pronouncements as running counter to the spirit of the joint decision taken by the Holy Synods of the two Churches on 16 May 1996 on the basis of the agreements reached in Zurich in April 1996 would be a too mild and perfunctory response to the recent actions of the Patriarchate of Constantinople.

The Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church, which has followed these events with profound anxiety, fears a possible return to the tragic situation of February-May 1996, when, because of the schismatic actions of the Patriarchate of Constantinople in Estonia, Orthodox Christians of the Churches of Constantinople and Russia, who live all over the world in close spiritual contact, were deprived of common Eucharistic communion at the one Chalice of Christ. The position of the Patriarch of Constantinople, made clear in Estonia, disavows the principal compromise agreements, for which the Russian Orthodox Church has settled for out of ‘the extreme economy’ and profound condescension, voluntarily infringing her fundamental canonical positions for the sake of the reestablishment of the canonical unity among Orthodox believers of the two jurisdictions not only in Estonia, but in the whole world.

As is known, the Orthodox communities on the territory of Estonia have been a part of the Russian Orthodox Church for seven centuries. Orthodox churches were built there through the care and zealous work of the Russian Orthodox Church. The duality in the canonical status of the Orthodox Church in Estonia was brought about by the political changes in the early 20th century. After the independent Estonian Republic had been formed, the Russian Orthodox Church granted autonomy to the Estonian Church by decree No.183 issued by the Holy Synod and the Supreme Ecclesiastical Council on 10 May 1929.

In 1923 Patriarch Meletius IV of Constantinople took advantage of the difficult situation of the Orthodox Church in Russia and illegally proclaimed jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople on the territory of the independent Estonia and transformed the Estonian Autonomous Orthodox Church into the Estonian Metropolia of the Patriarchate of Constantinople.

In 1935 the Orthodox Church in Estonia received civil registration with the title ‘Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church’ (EAOC), the Statute of which said nothing about its subjugation to Constantinople, whose representatives did not visit Estonia after 1923.

At its enlarged session in December 1940 the EAOC Synod took a decision to restore the canonical relations with the Russian Orthodox Church which had been forcefully interrupted by historical circumstances, whereby the Estonian diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church was established.

By the decision of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church of 11 August 1992 and by the Tomos of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia of 26 April 1993 the rights of autonomy of the Estonian diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church were restored, and it was entitled to be called the ‘Estonian Orthodox Church’.

On 29 April 1993 the Council of the Estonian Orthodox Church decided to be guided by the EAOC Statute of 1935 in the ecclesiastical life of the parishes in Estonia. This decision was taken unanimously by all participants in the Council. Yet, a group of clergymen soon after declared their belonging to the EAOC structure outside Estonia with a headquarters in Stockholm.

On 11 August 1993 the ‘Statute of the Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church’ of 1935 was registered. It was presented for registration on behalf of the Stockholm Synod of the EAOC, and this structure was given the rights to all church property. Thus a church schism in Estonia was provoked.

On 25 May 1995 Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, while in Finland, made a broadcast appeal to the Orthodox believers in Estonia, in which he called them to ‘revive as soon as possible the Estonian Autonomous Orthodox Church in direct communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate’. This appeal made the confrontation in church life in the country even more acute.

Despite the repeated appeals of the Moscow Patriarchate to the Patriarchate of Constantinople to show prudence, and despite the warnings that its one-sided actions could become a cause of the suspension of church communion between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Orthodox Church of Constantinople, Patriarch Bartholomew issued an ‘Act’ on 20 February 1996 on the renewal of the 1923 Tomos of Patriarch Meletius IV and on the establishment of the ‘Autonomous Orthodox Estonian Metropolia’ on the territory of Estonia. Temporal administration was entrusted to Archbishop John of Karelia and All Finland. A schismatic group headed by the suspended clergymen was accepted into canonical communion. Thus the schism in Estonia became a reality.

On 23 February 1996, in response to the one-sided and illegal actions of Patriarch Bartholomew the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church resolved to recognize them ‘as schismatic and compelling our Church to suspend canonical and Eucharistic communion with the Patriarchate of Constantinople… and to omit the name of the Patriarch of Constantinople in the diptych of the Primates of the Local Orthodox Churches’. On 1 March 1996 the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church adopted a Statement on the church situation in Estonia and presented a full treatment of historical and canonical grounds of its decision taken on February 23 concerning the Patriarchate of Constantinople.

The painful situation of the severed canonical relations as well as the numerous requests of the believers prompted both Churches to begin a dialogue. The Joint Commission of the Patriarchates of Constantinople and Moscow met in Zurich on April 3 and 22 in 1996. The text of the memorandum was agreed upon and included into the decisions taken by the Synods of the Orthodox Churches of Constantinople and Moscow on 16 May 1996. The document restored the interrupted communion between the two Patriarchates. It was decided ‘to let the Orthodox Christians in Estonia freely decide to which church jurisdiction they wish to belong’. The Patriarchate of Constantinople agreed to suspend for 4 months its decision of 20 February 1996 to establish the Autonomous Church in the jurisdiction of Constantinople on the territory of Estonia and committed itself, together with the Moscow Patriarchate ‘to cooperate in the matter of presenting their positions to the Estonian government with the objective that all Orthodox Christians have equal rights, including the right to property’.

At its meeting in Tallinn on 23 August 1996 the joint commission of the two Patriarchates adopted the lists of the parishes which defined their allegiance. The sides did not reach agreement on the two parishes (the Cathedral of the Assumption in Tartu and St.Isidore’s Church in Valga) and entrusted the sub-commission to arrange parish meetings to define their legal position and to prepare a draft decision on the legal status of the parishes of the Moscow Patriarchate, which had no civil registration.

In September 1996, both Patriarchates by the decision of their Holy Synods approved the lists of the parishes, which have defined their jurisdictions. As no agreement was reached on the legal aspect of the matter and the canonical status of the parishes in Tartu and Valga had not been mutually recognized, it was decided to prolong the moratorium on the decision of 20 February 1996 for another three months.

Meanwhile, the negotiations in the sub-commission were deadlocked because of Constantinople’s obstructionist attitude to the joint commissions’ decisions. Parish meetings in Tartu and Valga, which both sides planned for 8-9 September 1996 and which were announced to the believers in advance, were disrupted, as a representative of the Patriarchate of Constantinople did not arrive to Estonia. For the same reason the negotiations with representatives of the Moscow Patriarchate did not take place either. The position of the Patriarchate of Constantinople on legal matters of the Orthodox parishes of the Moscow Patriarchate in Estonia was narrowed down to non-recognition of their right to historical succession. The Patriarchate of Constantinople was prepared only to rent the churches legally belonging to its jurisdiction to the Moscow Patriarchate.

On 18 October 1996 Archbishop John of Karelia and All Finland celebrated the Divine Liturgy and in the Cathedral of the Assumption in Tartu and ordained a cleric. These one-sided actions by Archbishop John halted the interim moratorium put by the Patriarchate of Constantinople on its decision of 20 February 1996.

The next meeting of the joint commission of the Patriarchates of Constantinople and Moscow to resolve the situation in Estonia was held in Athens on 12 December 1996. The sides agreed to celebrate the divine services in the legally disputable churches in Tartu and Valga in turn. When discussing the question of the legal status of the parishes of the Moscow Patriarchate in Estonia, the Russian Orthodox Church delegation raised a claim against the Patriarchate of Constantinople for failing to undertake any action to solve this matter in a mutually acceptable way. The representatives of the Patriarchate of Constantinople agreed that common work done in this direction was progressing unsatisfactorily.

On 27 November 1998 another bilateral meeting was held in Geneva, though with no results.

On 13 March 1999 the Synod of the Patriarchate of Constantinople appointed a vicar of the Greek Metropolia in France Bishop Stephan as ‘Metropolitan of Tallinn and All Estonia’. While announcing this decision, Patriarch Bartholomew called upon the Russian Church to recognize Metropolitan Stephan as the ‘canonical and legal first hierarch of the Estonian Orthodox Church’. The Russian Orthodox Church, ‘surely considering the region of Estonia an autonomous part of the historical canonical territory of the Moscow Patriarchate’, refused to recognize the status of Metropolitan Stephan conferred on him by Constantinople.

Negotiations between the delegations of the Patriarchate of Constantinople and Moscow were held again in Geneva on 28 March 2000 to discuss the question of Estonia. The delegation of the Russian Orthodox Church proposed to solve the problem by concluding a legal agreement between the two parallel church structures in Estonia. An agreement envisaged full property rights to historical property used by both structures de facto. Yet Metropolitan Stephan, invited to the meeting by the delegation of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, put a categorical condition to the Moscow Patriarchate for concluding any legal agreement, which was to recognize the church structure headed by him as the only Autonomous Orthodox Church in Estonia. This position could not be accepted, as the Zurich agreements of 1996 on the division of the jurisdiction of the Estonian parishes the ultimate church compromise for which the Moscow Patriarchate settled. Thus, the way of peaceful solution of the legal aspects of the church property in Estonia was not accepted by Constantinople.

The Jubilee Bishops’ Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, held on 13-16 August 2000, considered the situation of the Orthodox Church in Estonia as one of the most important subjects. In the appropriate decision the Council emphasized that the Russian Church did not consider it possible to give a positive answer to a proposal of the Patriarchate of Constantinople to recognize the canonical status of the autonomy of the church jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople present in Estonia since 1996, as ‘the recognition of such status would not fully correspond to the historical development and present situation of Orthodoxy in Estonia as a whole.’ The Bishops’ Council insisted on the necessity of implementing the agreements between the two Church reached in May 1996 and resolved ‘to consider inadmissible the participation of representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church in inter-Orthodox meetings, where the participants from the so called ‘Autonomous Estonia Orthodox Church’ of the Patriarchate of Constantinople are represented.’

This chronology gives an objective picture of the actions of the Patriarchate of Constantinople in Estonia and shows the reserved position of the Russian Orthodox Church, imbued with the care for her flock and the desire for the canonical purity, historical justice and the achievement of civil peace and accord among the Churches.

It is with immense pain that the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church has to state that the one-sided and unagreed actions of Patriarch of Constantinople in Estonia have cancelled the results of common work done for the sake of accord in the matters pertaining to the situation of the Orthodox Church there. The establishment by the Patriarchate of Constantinople of its jurisdiction in Estonia in February 1996, the appointment of ‘Metropolitan of All Estonia’ in March 1999 and the announcement made during Patriarch Bartholomew’s visit to Estonia in October 2000 of the renunciation of the compromise agreements which envisage parallel presence of the two jurisdiction in Estonia speak for the consistent intention of Constantinople to usurp canonical authority in Estonia and to deprive the Estonian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate not only of the legal, but also of the canonical right of succession in the country, where Orthodoxy has been nourished and strengthened through the efforts of the ascetics of faith and piety, both Russian- and Estonian-speaking, who have been faithful children of the Russian Orthodox Church. The policy of the Patriarch of Constantinople aimed at the establishment of a ‘national church’ in Estonia not only contradicts the principles worked out by the Church of Constantinople, which has denounced ethnophiletism, but also gives a strong impetus to civil confrontation in the Estonian Republic along ethnic lines. That was testified by the secular representatives of this state, which proclaims democratic principles.

In response to the afore-mentioned statements made by the Patriarch of Constantinople in Estonia, the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church claims responsibility for its position, which guarantees the firm preservation of the canonical succession of the Estonian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate and active support of the recognition of the rights to this succession in the secular world.

The Holy Synod confirms the autonomous status of the Estonian Orthodox Church in the fold of the Mother Church – the Moscow Patriarchate, granted by His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon, the holy confessor of All Russia, and confirmed by the Tomos of Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia. The fact that this Church is headed by a hierarch with the title ‘of Tallinn and All Estonia’ cannot be subjected to any doubt or change. Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia expressed his primatial support for the Estonian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate and to its primate by issuing the decree of 6 November 2000 whereby elevating His Eminence Archbishop Kornily of Tallinn and Estonia to the rank of Metropolitan.

The Russian Orthodox Church shall continue to care for all her faithful children, who live beyond the Russian State, and render her spiritual protection to her flock, who temporarily, for well-known historical and political reasons, have changed the fold of the Mother Church to the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople and welcome their voluntary return to their spiritual roots under the primatial omophorion of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia.

The Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church does not abandon hope for the achievement of mutual understanding and the establishment of the truly fraternal relations with the Patriarchate of Constantinople, as according to the words of our Lord Jesus Christ ‘all things are possible to him who believes’ (Mk.9:23), and thinks that under the present conditions it would be a hypocrisy to show our unity to the world, when trust has been undermined and the principles of fraternal co-operation have been trampled upon on the way to the real healing of the painful division of the Orthodox Church in Estonia.

The Holy Synod states that before the accord in the matters of the canonical life of the Orthodox Church in Estonia is not restored and peace and justice towards all Orthodox Christians in the country are achieved, the Moscow Patriarchate flatly refuses to attend any meetings with the participation of Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, His Eminence John, head of the Finnish Archdiocese of the Patriarchate of Constantinople and His Eminence Stephan, head of the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople in Estonia.

Due to the aforesaid, representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church are forced to forgo their participation in the activities arranged by the Patriarchate of Constantinople in Istanbul on 30 November 2000 timed with the dedication day of the Church of St.Andrew-the-First-Called, in the Christmas jubilee festivities in Istanbul on 25 December 2000, and also in the symposium on the environment during the cruise of Patriarch Bartholomew along the Baltic sea planned from May 25 to 5 June 2001. His visits to the dioceses of the Russian Orthodox Church during the cruise are considered undesirable.

As always in the times of difficult trials, we place all our hopes into God’s hands and rely on His All-Gracious Providence, the intercession of His Most Pure Mother and Ever Virgin Mary, the intercession of all the saints and on the fervent prayers of the newly canonized Russian martyrs, again and again offering up our humble prayers to the Chief Shepherd Our Lord Jesus Christ to make us wise and bring us into unity.