The Estonian Interior Ministry intends to persuade parishes of the Estonian Orthodox Church to withdraw from the Moscow Patriarchate, ERR reports with reference to Vice Chancellor for Population and Civil Society of the Ministry Raivo Küyt, UNN reports .
Details
The day before, on April 18, a draft statement was submitted to the Estonian parliament, the Riigikogu, in which the Moscow Patriarchate was called "Russia's hybrid weapon for aggressive policy in the world" and condemned for justifying military actions in Ukraine.
The draft was prepared by 52 deputies shortly after the release of the decree of the World Russian People's Council, which called the military conflict between Russia and Ukraine a "holy war" and "a stage of the national liberation struggle of the Russian people against the criminal Kyiv regime and the collective West behind it.
According to Küyt and Ringo Ringwei, an adviser to the Religious Affairs Department of the Interior Ministry, the MP MP is not directly subordinate to the Moscow Patriarchate and therefore is not responsible for the wording of the order. However, they said, the church is still "not free from the influence of the Moscow Patriarchate," so the ministry proposes to sever ties with it. The GOC MP could join the Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church, which is under the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, the Interior Ministry said.
Küyt assured that the Estonian authorities do not intend to close churches or interfere with the work of parishes that are part of the MP MP.