Estonian Russian Orthodox Church Must Cut Moscow Ties New Law Says

The Eston­ian Russ­ian Ortho­dox Church will be required to cut ties with the Moscow Patri­ar­chate fol­low­ing leg­is­la­tion recent­ly passed by the Eston­ian par­lia­ment. On April 10, 2025, the Kyiv Inde­pen­dent report­ed that the Eston­ian par­lia­ment approved a law tar­get­ing reli­gious orga­ni­za­tions with con­nec­tions to for­eign insti­tu­tions that incite vio­lence or hatred. The law specif­i­cal­ly impacts the Eston­ian Ortho­dox Church oper­at­ing under the Moscow Patri­ar­chate’s juris­dic­tion. The arti­cle begins:

The Eston­ian par­lia­ment passed a law on April 9 that will require reli­gious orga­ni­za­tions to cut ties with for­eign insti­tu­tions that incite vio­lence or hatred, man­dat­ing the Eston­ian Ortho­dox Church to sev­er its con­nec­tion with the Moscow Patri­ar­chate. The leg­is­la­tion aims to pre­vent for­eign influ­ence in Esto­ni­a’s reli­gious sphere if it threat­ens nation­al secu­ri­ty, con­sti­tu­tion­al order, or pub­lic order or if it pro­motes mil­i­tary aggres­sion or incites war, accord­ing to the par­lia­men­t’s press ser­vice. The Eston­ian Ortho­dox Church, which oper­ates under the juris­dic­tion of the Russ­ian Ortho­dox Church, also known as the Moscow Patri­ar­chate, will be direct­ly impact­ed. Accord­ing to Eston­ian pub­lic broad­cast­er ERR, the church will be com­pelled to cut ties with Moscow when the law, which still requires pres­i­den­tial approval, takes effect. The Moscow Patri­ar­chate has open­ly sup­port­ed Rus­si­a’s full-scale inva­sion of Ukraine. Patri­arch Kir­ill, a staunch ally of Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin, has repeat­ed­ly endorsed the war, describ­ing Putin’s rule as a “gift from God” and bless­ing Russ­ian mil­i­tary operations.

Read more: https://kyivindependent.com/estonia-passes-law-targeting-moscow-linked-church-ties/

Key Points

• Eston­ian par­lia­ment pre­vi­ous­ly des­ig­nat­ed the Russ­ian Ortho­dox Church as an insti­tu­tion spon­sor­ing Rus­si­a’s mil­i­tary aggres­sion in May 2024.
• Patri­arch Kir­il­l’s pro-war stance has caused glob­al Ortho­dox com­mu­ni­ty divi­sions and result­ed in Ukrain­ian legal action against him.
• Eston­ian offi­cials have accused the local Ortho­dox Church lead­er­ship of sym­pa­thiz­ing with Russ­ian aggres­sion in Ukraine.
• Esto­nia, a NATO front­line state and vocal Ukraine sup­port­er, con­tin­ues tak­ing firm mea­sures against Russ­ian influ­ence since the invasion.

Estonian Russian Orthodox Church: Russian Influence Strategies

Russia’s influ­ence oper­a­tions in Esto­nia have increas­ing­ly lever­aged reli­gious and cul­tur­al insti­tu­tions, with the Eston­ian Russ­ian Ortho­dox Church fre­quent­ly posi­tioned as both a tar­get and a con­duit for Krem­lin soft pow­er strate­gies. A recent Russ­ian report on soft pow­er strat­e­gy in the Baltic states details Moscow’s sys­tem­at­ic efforts to shape pub­lic opin­ion and pol­i­cy in Esto­nia, empha­siz­ing the use of Ortho­dox reli­gious net­works to fos­ter pro-Russ­ian sen­ti­ment and counter West­ern inte­gra­tion. This approach is rein­forced by dis­in­for­ma­tion cam­paigns and the ampli­fi­ca­tion of Krem­lin nar­ra­tives through both state-backed media and influ­en­tial indi­vid­u­als, as seen when a for­mer senior CIA ana­lyst turned Rus­sia pro­pa­gan­dist par­tic­i­pat­ed in a webi­nar with a con­vict­ed ter­ror­ism sup­port­er, illus­trat­ing the Kremlin’s will­ing­ness to col­lab­o­rate with diverse actors to legit­imize its mes­sag­ing. The manip­u­la­tion of reli­gious rhetoric—such as the claims of “satanism” in Ukraine, which are like­ly believed by Putin and Russ­ian lead­ers, and the fram­ing of Russia’s mil­i­tary actions as a “holy war” by Putin’s allies—demon­strates how the Krem­lin seeks to mobi­lize reli­gious iden­ti­ty for polit­i­cal ends, with spillover effects on Estonia’s Ortho­dox com­mu­ni­ty. Fur­ther­more, tac­tics such as accus­ing Ukraine of grave des­e­cra­tion before Ortho­dox Christ­mas to gen­er­ate pro­pa­gan­da reveal the Kremlin’s intent to exploit reli­gious occa­sions for influ­ence oper­a­tions, deep­en­ing soci­etal divides and com­pli­cat­ing Estonia’s efforts to main­tain inter­nal cohe­sion. These devel­op­ments high­light the mul­ti­fac­eted and adap­tive nature of Russ­ian influ­ence, com­bin­ing ide­o­log­i­cal, polit­i­cal, and oper­a­tional dynam­ics that chal­lenge Estonia’s sov­er­eign­ty and the integri­ty of its Russ­ian Ortho­dox Church community.

Exter­nal References:

1. Russ­ian influ­ence oper­a­tions in Esto­nia — Wikipedia

2. ISS direc­tor: Russ­ian influ­ence activ­i­ties in Esto­nia have become harsher

3. Rus­sia recruits ordi­nary cit­i­zens to restore its influ­ence in the Baltic states

Dis­claimer:

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) employs AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing gen­er­at­ing sum­maries of news items, the intro­duc­tion, key points, and often the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, images are AI-gen­er­at­ed and intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.