Review by SEBASTIAN RIMESTAD. This review is a direct translation by the author of a review in French, published in Révue d’histoire ecclésiastique, vol. 111, no. 1-2 (2016), pp. 340-343.
A conflict occurred during the 1990s in the Orthodox world in Estonia between, on the one hand, the Orthodox Church emerging from the Soviet Union and reporting to the patriarchate of Moscow and, on the other, a group of priests and laypeople who wanted to reinstate the inter-war Orthodox Church of Estonia under the patriarchate of Constantinople.
This conflict, which engendered a three-month rupture of communion between the patriarchates of Constantinople and Moscow in 1996, has been well covered by academic treatments. The two opposing parties have published several volumes meant to justify their point of view. [1] This book by Metropolitan Stephanos and Jean-François Jolivalt perfectly inscribes itself into this historical tradition.
At the same time, the book boasts a very anachronistic title: The true history of the Orthodox Church in Estonia. At least since the historical debates of the 1970s, it is generally accepted that there is no such thing as ’true history’. Historiography is told in hegemonic narratives and their alternatives. According to Metropolitan Stephanos, the current head of the Estonian Orthodox Church under Constantinople, the hegemonic story of Orthodox Estonians is not the correct one. That is why he feels the need to publish this book in order to rectify the false narratives.
Nevertheless, the book cannot aspire to tell a true history since it is written from a very specific standpoint, at times so convinced of its own truth that alternative interpretations and arguments are not even acknowledged. If we add that Metropolitan Stephanos is a Cypriot by birth who spent most of his life in France, having never studied history and knowing Estonia only since his arrival in 1999, the pretension to write a true history becomes even less convincing. The other author, the journalist Jean-François Jolivalt, seems just to have put Stephanos’ ideas to paper, adding some colourful geopolitical analyses without having any knowledge of Estonia.
Thus, the book does not have much academic value and only serves as a justification for a certain point of view. The bibliographic apparatus and the few footnotes do not in any way help the reader find more information about the arguments and facts presented. This is especially the case in the first nine chapters, which treat the history of Orthodoxy in Estonia until the 1980s. The people that have been around the metropolitan since his nomination in 1999 do not have much living memory about this history. Therefore, the history of the Orthodox Church until Estonia’s first independence in 1917/1920 is full of factual errors, inaccuracies, and exaggerated generalisations. Moreover, according to Stephanos, there is a perfect continuity between the first Orthodox Christians on the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea and the current Orthodox Estonians. In reality, history is much more complex and contradictory than is possible to cover in a few pages without having profound knowledge of the region.
For example: “Thus, in 1838, Estonia is threatened by famine after three years of draught. A delegation of Lutheran peasants travels to Riga, the administrative centre of the Baltic region, in order to express their suffering to the Russian governor. Instead of meeting with the representative of the Tsar, who closes the door before them, they go to the Orthodox bishop, another Russian, to plead for help. The prelate, attentive and compassionate, is convinced and releases the help that lets the peasant live through their misery.” (p. 18) In this short passage, there are no less than four grave historical errors. First, this happened in 1841 and again in 1845. Second, Riga was not the capital of the Baltic region, but only of the province of Livland, one of the Baltic provinces. Then, the governor was not a Russian, but a Baltic German. Finally, the bishop had no possibility of helping the peasants out. His hands were tied, as the Baltic Germans had a religious monopoly over the Estonians.
The rest of the historical narrative of the book’s first part could also be criticised in the same vein. Sometimes, there seems to have been a long transmission chain: first, there are the Orthodox Estonians, who try to present a positive history to their hierarch. Then, Stephanos tells Jolivalt what he has understood and the latter adds his own geopolitical elements that make the prose appealing and emotionally engaging.
After 1917, the same historiographical tendency continues, although the sources used become more concrete. Unfortunately, these are seldom of great value. In fact, Metropolitan Stephanos often uses the historical summary prepared by the Estonian lawyer Mari-Ann Heljas for the registration hearing of the Constantinople Church in 1993. Even though this summary is largely correct, it remains a juridical document and not an objective treatment of academic history. On the other hand, the footnotes often refer to the dissertation of Andrei Sõtšov, Achievement and Fight for the Independence of Orthodox Church of Estonia, 1940-1945. However, this was not a PhD dissertation, but merely a short summary of Sõtsov’s BA thesis, published in English. The PhD dissertation covers a different period and is written in Estonian.
The major part of the book treats recent history since the fall of the Soviet Union. This enables a much clearer picture, since Stephanos is able to consult eyewitnesses and, from 1999, his own memory. What Stephanos tells in this part of the book corresponds largely to what one can find in other treatments of recent Estonian Orthodox history. The main difference is that the entire history is told solely from the point of view of the Estonians, wishing to reinstate the “lost” church “crushed” by Stalin. This view is often just sentimental and personal, verging even on the apologetic.
Stephanos often claims that he is interested in a dialogue with the Estonian diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church, but, at the same time, he accuses the latter in less than courteous terms. Metropolitan Kornelii of the Russian diocese (whom Stephanos seems to refuse the title of metropolitan) is described as “clumsy” (p. 280) and Patriarch Kirill of Moscow as someone who has “escaped from a different century” (p. 296). In contrast to the Russian treatments of the conflict, which claim that it is the Russian church that is maltreated, Stephanos tends to describe the Estonian Orthodox community as the victim of Russian bullying, all the while depicting his own church as superior because it is under Constantinople’s protection. He repeatedly claims that Estonian Orthodoxy would have imploded without Constantinople’s intervention.
Towards the end of the book, the author becomes more personal, since he describes his own everyday life. For Stephanos, living the church is not only doing politics – i.e. opposing the Russian church – but, and most importantly, finding a foundation in the Bible. This is why theological language becomes prominent in this part of the book. The author talks about the ecumenical movement and theological education in Estonia. At the same time, he does not hesitate to criticise those of the clergy and the lay faithful who see the church as nothing but a way of affirming their nationality. Now that the legal situation of the church is regulated, Stephanos aims to instil a truly Christian spirit in it.
In conclusion, the book does not deliver on the promise in the title, at times even contorting historical facts to fit into a specific narrative. However, it is not completely useless, as it gives an insight into Metropolitan Stephanos’ personal view of the current ecclesiastical situation in Estonia. The situation is not entirely clear and, because of the polemics of the two adversaries, it remains opaque. The book is a good point of departure in order to understand the complex challenges that engendered one of the gravest crises of the Orthodox world in the 1990s. It also shows how history often is much more complex than at first glance. To fully understand this last point, it is not enough to read this book alone: it should necessarily be complemented by others.
[1] From the Moscow side: Igor PREKUP, Pravoslavie v Estonii (Tallinn, 1996); Patriarch Aleksii II of Moscow, Pravoslavie v Estonii (Moscow, 1999); Pravoslavie v Estonii, 2007. From the side of Constantinople: Grigorios Papathomas and Mattias Palli (eds), The Autonomous Orthodox Church of Estonia – L’Eglise Autonome Orthodoxe d’Estonie (Katérini, 2002); special issue of Istina, 1 (2004). For an objective treatment of this conflict, see Sebastian Rimestad, “Orthodox Churches in Estonia”, in Lucian Leustean (ed.), Eastern Christianity and Politics in the Twenty-First Century (Abingdon: Oxon, 2014), pp. 295-311.