Founding the Estonian Orthodox Church

No. 1: Letter from the Episcopal Council of the Estonian Orthodox Church to Patriarch Tikhon of Moscow (14 May 1920)

As Your Beatitude knows, since the day of the death of Bishop Platon the Orthodox Church of Estonia has been orphaned. The priest Aleksander Paulus, chosen by the Council of all the Orthodox Clergy and Laity of Estonia, has still not been consecrated. The flock is without its pastor. Many churches do not have priests. There is no-one to bless them. Due to the lack of a pastor, the spiritual flock is in dismay.

According to the peace treaty, all of Pecherskii region and its Orthodox Estonian and Russian populations have been joined to the Estonian Republic. Church life in this region also requires the closest pastoral leadership. The Episcopal Council of Estonia discussed the needs of this region with a mixed population in its session of 3 May and recognised that it is necessary that there be a suffragan bishop in Pecherskii: selecting hieromonk Ioann (Bulin), the dean of Pecherskii, as the candidate for this position, it was resolved to petition before Your Beatitude to allow us to consecrate hieromonk Ioann as a suffragan bishop simultaneously with the priest Aleksander Paulus: [Ioann] has an academic education, is 27 years old, and is a man entirely worthy to accept this high rank.

Besides this, the Episcopal Council of Estonia, in its session on 10 May, heard a letter from the Finnish Orthodox Church Administration from 3 May on the question of consecrating Father Kazanzii, the archpriest of the Vyborg cathedral, as the suffragan bishop of Finland.

Taking into consideration all of the above, the Episcopal Council of Estonia dares to ask Your Beatitude to gladden the Orthodox population of the Estonian Republic with your personal presence in Revel for the consecration of the priest Paulus and hieromonk Ioann and by this deliver the Orthodox Church of Estonia from its current grievous and dangerous position. The Episcopal Council has the duty to add that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Estonian Republic, through its letter on 3 May, has informed the diocesan council that the named ministry is prepared to assist the arrival of Your Beatitude in Estonia. If Your Beatitude finds it possible to fulfill the aforementioned request, the Episcopal Council of Estonia asks that you inform it in good time about the time and conditions of Your Beatitude’s arrival in Revel. It would be desirable to meet Your Beatitude no later than 27 June.

No. 2: Speech of Archbishop Aleksander (Paulus) to Patriarch Meletios of Constantinople (3 July 1923)

Your Beatitude, holy patriarch, supreme and dear father, my lord and father! In the name of the Estonian Orthodox Church as its representative and pastor, I have the honour to turn to you, my lord the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople, with the most sincere greetings and to express to you my deepest esteem. The Estonian Orthodox Church is not great in numbers: it has 240,000 souls, but, with the grace of God, it will grow. Before 1917, the Estonian Church was administered by Russian bishops, and only on 31 December 1917 was the first truly Estonian bishop, Platon, consecrated. To our deepest sorrow, he was killed by the Bolsheviks a year later on 14 January 1919. After this, a general gathering of the Estonian Church elected me as the supreme pastor, but the times were not calm and my consecration was realised only on 20 December 1920. In the same year, the patriarch of all Rus recognised the autonomy of the Estonian Church, but he delayed the question of autocephaly. From 1920, the Estonian Church was de facto independent in the territory of the sovereign Estonian Republic, and to support a connection with the Russian Church was impossible as a consequence of the disorders in Russia and the Russian Church. The general assemblies of 1920 and 1922 ruled that for the growth and development of the Estonian Church, the recognition of its autocephaly was vitally necessary. On the basis of these rulings, I now turn to Your Beatitude with a request that you, as the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople, the source of the light of the Orthodox faith that enlightened us via Russia, recognise and bless the autocephaly of the Estonian Orthodox Church and convince the other patriarchs of the Eastern Orthodox Church to agree with you in this question. I also ask for your agreement to consecrate Archpriest German Aav. He served under me and was recently elected as bishop of Finalnd. He is undoubtedly worthy to occupy an episcopal cathedra. I have the honour to present to Your Beatitude this cross beribboned in the national colours of Estonia and this omophorion with real Estonian embroidery as gifts from the Estonian Orthodox Church.