The
Church of Estonia or
Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church (
Eesti Apostlik-Õigeusu Kirik) is an
autonomous Orthodox church whose
primate is confirmed by the
Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople. Under Estonian law it is the legal successor to the pre–World War II
Estonian Orthodox Church, which in 1940 had had over 210,000 faithful, three bishops, 156 parishes, 131 priests, 19 deacons, two monasteries, and a theological seminary, the majority of the faithful were ethnic Estonians. Its official name in English is the
Estonian Orthodox Church.
The current primate of the church is
Stephanos,
Metropolitan of
Tallinn and all Estonia, elected in 1999.
History
Orthodox missionaries from
Novgorod and
Pskov were active among the Estonians in the southeast regions of the area, closest to
Pskov, in the 10th through 12th centuries. The first mention of an Orthodox congregation in Estonia was in 1030 in what is now
Tartu. Around 600 AD on the east side of Toome Hill (Toomemägi) the Estonians established the town
Tarbatu. In 1030, the Kievan prince,
Yaroslav the Wise, raided Tarbatu and built his own fort called Yuriev, as well as (allegedly) a congregation in a cathedral dedicated to his patron saint,
St. George. The congregation may have survived until 1061, when, according to chronicles, Yuriev was burned and the Orthodox Christians expelled.
As a result of the
Northern Crusades in the beginning of the 13th century, Northern Estonia was conquered by
Denmark and the southern...
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