Source: Peter Anderson, Seattle USA
On April 9, the Riigikogu (the Estonian Parliament) passed on the third and final reading the “Amendments to the Churches and Congregations Act” (Bill 570 SE) by a vote of 60 to 13. https://www.riigikogu.ee/en/press-releases/plenary-assembly/the-riigikogu-adopted-amendments-to-the-churches-and-congregations-act/ The version of the Bill that was passed on April 9 is the same as the version that was submitted to the plenary session of the Riigikogu by its Legal Affair Committee for the third reading. I discussed this version in my newsletter of 30 March 2025. I have attached again this version (including a Google English translation of the entire Bill) to this newsletter. In effect, the new legislation will require the Pühtitsa Women’s Monastery of the Dormition and the Estonian Christian Orthodox Church (the new name of the Estonian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate) to break any ties to the Moscow Patriarchate. If they fail to do so, they will face “dissolution.” In my earlier report, I expressed my belief that Bill 570 SE does not comply with the international standards relating to freedom of religion.
On April 10, the President of the Riigikogu sent the Bill to President Alar Karis of Estonia for “promulgation.” https://rus.err.ee/1609659938/prinjatyj-parlamentom-zakon-o-cerkvjah-i-prihodah-napravlen-prezidentu The Constitution of Estonia provides for a very limited veto power by the President of Estonia. Thus, Section 107 of the Constitution provides: Laws are promulgated by the President. The President may refuse to promulgate a law passed by the Riigikogu and, within fourteen days after its receipt, return the law, together with his or her reasoned resolution, to the Riigikogu for a new debate and decision. If the Riigikogu, for the second time and without amending it, passes a law which has been returned to it by the President, the President either promulgates the law or applies to the Supreme Court for a declaration of unconstitutionality in respect of that law. If the Supreme Court declares the law to be in conformity with the Constitution, the President promulgates the law. Thus, if Karis refuses to promulgate the passed legislation, he must do so by Thursday, April 24. So far, Karis has taken no action on the new legislation, and I doubt that he will do so during Holy Week.
The attorneys for the Pühtitsa Monastery and the Estonian Christian Orthodox Church (ECOC) have written a letter to Karis expressing their opinion as to why the passed legislation violates the Estonian Constitution and international law. The full text of the letter can be read at https://et.orthodox.ee/news/ekoki-ja-puhtitsa-naiskloostrit-esindavad-advokaadid-poordusid-eesti-vabariigi-presidendi-poole-seoses-kirikute-ja-koguduste-seaduse-muudatustega/. Igumenia Filareta (Kalacheva) and her 96 sisters at the Pühtitsa Monastery have also written a separate letter to Karis. https://www.puhtitsa.ee/docs/Puhtitsa%20poordumine%20EV%20presidendile%20parandatud.pdf On April 10 the Holy Synod of the Moscow Patriarchate issued a special statement condemning the passage of Bill 570 SE by the Estonian parliament. https://www.patriarchia.ru/en/article/115184 On April 11 Patriarch Kirill sent letters to world church leaders and certain international organizations “to stand in support of the Estonian Orthodox Christian Church in this difficult time.” https://www.patriarchia.ru/en/article/115212 To date I have seen no response in the media by any of the recipients of Patriarch Kirill’s appeal.
It should be noted that the relationships of the Pühtitsa Monastery and the ECOC to the Moscow Patriarchate are not the same. Under Chapter XII of the Charter of the Moscow Patriarchate, the ECOC is a “Self-governing Church” with certain autonomy. https://www.patriarchia.ru/article/87253 On the other hand, Pühtitsa is a stavropegic monastery. Under Chapter XVIII, Section 4, of the Charter of the Moscow Patriarchate, “stavropegic” means that the Monastery is “under the supervision and canonical governance of the Patriarch of Moscow.” https://www.patriarchia.ru/article/87247 While it will be necessary under Bill 570 SE to examine the relationship between the “self-governing” ECOC and the Moscow Patriarchate, a similar examination is not necessary with respect to the Pühtitsa Monastery because it is directly under the Patriarch. Because the Patriarch has direct and complete power over the Monastery, the Estonian government will have a very easy case proving that the language of the new law requiring separation from the Moscow Patriarchate applies to the Monastery.
I personally believe that for several reasons the Monastery will never agree to break its relationship with the Patriarchate even in the face of a court decision. First, Igumenia Filareta and her sisters have already made it abundantly clear that the Monastery cannot sever its relationship with the Moscow Patriarchate. In an appeal to the members of the Riigikogu and to all Christians and citizens of Estonia, dated April 8, 2025, Filareta and her sisters asserted that leaving the Moscow Patriarchate would be “a canonical crime.” https://www.puhtitsa.ee/docs/Eng.pdf Second, aside from canonical reasons, there has been historically an extremely close relationship between the Monastery and the office of the Patriarch, and there may well be a great reluctance to break this bond now. This very close relationship existed particularly during the time of Patriarch Alexy II, who had a great love for the Monastery. It is probably safe to say that there was no other institution within the Moscow Patriarchate for which Alexy had greater affection.
Alexy was born and raised in Tallinn. He regularly visited the Pühtitsa Monastery with his parents. His first assignment as a priest was to the village of Jõhvi, a 17-minute drive from Pühtitsa. In August 1961 Alexy became the bishop of Tallinn and All Estonia. A sister from the Pühtitsa Monastery, Filareta (Smirnova) was assigned to head Alexy’s household. Mother Filareta (1935-2022) performed this important and influential role for more than forty years until the death of Patriarch Alexy in 2008. When Alexy was elected patriarch in June 1990, he immediately made Pühtitsa a stavropegic monastery. In 1993 Patriarch Alexy established a metochion of the Pühtitsa Monastery in Moscow. Sisters from the Pühtitsa Monastery were assigned to head various recently-opened monasteries in Russia.
However, in the mind of the sisters of the Monastery, the most important role played by Alexy was that he saved their monastery from closure during the time of the severe persecution of the Church by Khrushchev, who had announced in 1961 that he would show the “last priest” on television. Alexy’s role in saving the Monastery is described in an article at https://orthodoxcanada.ca/Patriarch_Aleksey_II_(Ridiger) . The following excerpt from the article describes the ingenuity used by Alexy in saving the Monastery:
From the very first days [as bishop of Tallinn], Bishop Aleksey found himself in an extremely difficult situation: Yan S Kanter, the representative of the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church [the government department controlling religion]in Estonia, notified him that in the summer of 1961, a decision had been made to close the Pühtitsa Monastery…. There was almost no time left, for the closures were to begin in the coming days, and the time for transferring the Pühtitsa Monastery nuns to a rest house for miners was determined (1 October, 1961). The young bishop understood that this must be averted for the sake of the survival of the Church. Therefore, he begged the authorities to postpone the execution of the drastic decision for a short while….[H]e managed a delay by convincing the Soviet authorities about the impossibility for a bishop to begin his service with the closure of a monastery, and in particular this monastery. At the beginning of 1962, because he was now the deputy chairman of the DECR, Bishop Aleksey brought to the monastery a visiting delegation of higher clergy of the Evangelical Church of Eastern Germany (GDR)….Soon, there were “rave reviews” about the Pühtitsa Monastery in the newspaper “Neue Zeit”.
After this, in early May, 1962, Bishop Aleksey decided to send out similar invitations. Soon, a Protestant delegation from France, representatives of the Christian Peace Conference (CPC) and of the World Council of Churches (WCC), arrived in Pühtitsa (now Kurmäe) with Vladyka Aleksey. There arrived another delegation, then a third, a fourth, a fifth. After a year of these active visits to the monastery by foreign delegations, and similar publications abroad, the Estonian Soviet government changed its decision. It was decided not to spoil the Soviet Union’s image by destroying the now world-famous piece of architecture. The project of closing the monastery was ended.
As a result of these efforts by Alexy, Pühtitsa became the only women’s monastery in the Soviet Union which the communist authorities never closed at some point of time. It now appears that the Estonian government and the Monastery are on a collision path. If Bill 570 SE becomes law, the Monastery will in all likelihood refuse to sever its relationship with the Moscow Patriarchate. The remedy provided to the government in the Bill is dissolution of the Monastery. One wonders if the Estonian government will ever dare to dissolve this famous Monastery which even the Khrushchev regime failed to close because of the image this action would create.
Peter Anderson, Seattle USA