Schism between orthodox churches
In 1996 a schism between Moscow and Constantinople occurred; this schism began on 23 February 1996, when the Russian Orthodox Church severed full communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, and ended on 16 May 1996 when the Russian Orthodox Church and the Ecumenical Patriarchate reached an agreement.
This excommunication by the Russian Orthodox Church was done in response to a decision of the synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate to reestablish an Orthodox church in Estonia under the Ecumenical Patriarchate's canonical jurisdiction as an on 20 February 1996. This schism has similarities with the Moscow–Constantinople schism of October 2018.
On 8 November 2000, in an official statement, the Russian Orthodox Church described this schism as "the tragic situation of February–May 1996, when, because of the schismatic actions of the Patriarchate of Constantinople in Estonia, Orthodox Christians of the Churches of Constantinople and Russia, who live all over the world in close spiritual contact, were deprived of common Eucharistic communion at the one Chalice of Christ."
Brief background.
Autonomy of the Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church.
Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, St. Tikhon, recognised in 1920 the Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church (EAOC) as being (Resolution No. 1780) under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate, postponing the discussion concerning the EAOC's autocephaly. "After Patriarch Tikhon's arrest by the Soviet government, contacts between him and the autonomous Estonian Orthodox Church were severed. Consequently, the autonomous Estonian Orthodox Church, which wanted to assert its ecclesiastical independence, decided to seek a fuller and final canonical recognition from the patriarch of Constantinople."
Ecumenical Patriarchate's "tomos" of 1923.
With the Estonian independence and the persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Aleksander Paulus of Tallinn and all Estonia asked the Ecumenical Patriarchate to receive his church (the Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church (EAOC)) into the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. On 7 July 1923, Patriarch Meletios IV of Constantinople issued a "tomos" accepting the Estonian Church in the Ecumenical Patriarchate's jurisdiction with an status (Tomos 3348). This tomos "established under the Ecumenical Patriarchate the Autonomous Orthodox Apostolic Church of Estonia known as "Orthodox Metropolitanate of Estonia"" Some Orthodox Russians in Estonia decided to remain under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate. The Russian Orthodox Church considers that "Patriarch Meletius IV of Constantinople took advantage of the difficult situation of the Orthodox Church in Russia and illegally proclaimed jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople on the territory of the independent Estonia and transformed the Estonian Autonomous Orthodox Church into the Estonian Metropolia of the Patriarchate of Constantinople." After a conflict with Constantinople, the Estonian Autonomous Orthodox Church got the legal property of national churches and monasteries.
Exile of the Orthodox Metropolitanate of Estonia and 1978 deactivation of the "tomos".
In 1940 the Soviet Union annexed Estonia. After 1944, Metropolitan Aleksander Paulus of the EAOC went into exile in Stockholm, Sweden, with 23 members of his clergy and 7000 (or 8000) faithfuls. The church based in Stockholm remained attached to the Ecumenical Patriarchate and served around 10,000 Estonian Orthodox exiled in various countries. After the death of Metropolitan Alexander in 1953, the Ecumenical Patriarchate consecrated a new Estonian Orthodox bishop, bishop George (Välbe), to oversee the Estonian Church based in Stockholm. After Välbe's death in 1961, his Estonian parishes were placed under local bishops of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.
The Orthodox Church which remained in Estonia was incorporated into the Russian Orthodox Church after the Soviet annexed Estonia. On 10 December 1944, the synod of the Moscow Patriarchate promulgated the Ukase which ended the functioning of the Orthodox Church of Estonia and established in its place the Diocese of Tallinn and Estonia. This dissolution effectively took place on 9 March 1945. The Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church later declared it considered that "[t]he autonomy of the Orthodox Church of Estonia, accorded in 1923 by the Oecumenical Patriarch Meletios, was abolished on March 9, 1945 by force, unilaterally without respecting the canonical order and without informing the Oecumenical Patriarch about it nor waiting for his consentment".
In a letter sent to the then-Patriarch of Moscow Alexy II on 24 February 1996, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew wrote that "the Patriarchate of Russia during those years trespassed in countries under the spiritual jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, namely, Estonia, Hungary and elsewhere, always by the power of the Soviet army. The Church of Russia did not at the time seek the opinion of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, nor was any respect shown it. The annexation of the Orthodox Church of Estonia into the Most Holy Church of Russia happened arbitrarily and uncanonically. And it is certain that events which are uncanonical at one particular time are never blessed, never seen as efficacious, and never would they set a precedence."
On 13 April 1978, at the request of the Russian Orthodox Church, the Ecumenical Patriarchate deactivated the 1923 tomos which had established the autonomous Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church under the Ecumenical Patriarchate. The Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew explained in 1996 it was "[d]ue to the then existing political conditions and following the persistent request of the Patriarch of Moscow" and "due to the circumstances of the times" as well as "for the sake of smooth relations with the Patriarchate of Moscow, at which time Estonia still constituted a section of the then Soviet Union" The Ecumenical Patriarch declared the tomos had been made "inoperative, but not invalid". "Due to demographic shifts, Russians made up the majority of the Orthodox population of Estonia by the end of Soviet rule."
Post-Soviet period.
After the fall of the Soviet Union and the renewed independence of Estonia in 1991, a dispute developed among the Orthodox community between those who wished to remain linked to the Moscow Patriarchate and those who wanted the autonomous Orthodox church under the Ecumenical Patriarchate to be reestablished. Lengthy negotiations between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Ecumenical Patriarchate failed to produce an agreement.
"In 1991, after Estonia had broken away from the Soviet Union, the sovereignty of the Republic of Estonia was restored. At the time, the ruling Bishop in Estonia was Cornelius (Jakobs). He held negotiations with the Government concerning a number of urgent internal ecclesiastical matters, which could not be resolved without state support. On 11 August 1993, instead of registering the representatives of the Russian Orthodox Synod, the Estonian State Department of Religions registered the representatives of the «Synod of the Estonian Orthodox Church in Exile» as the sole legal successor of the Autonomous Estonian Apostolic Church. That registration was of political and social importance because it made the «Synod of the Estonian Orthodox Church in Exile» the sole owner of all church-related immovable property in Estonia. The Russian Orthodox Church started legal proceedings to defend its legal and canonical position in the country, that the «Synod in Exile» had neither an episcopal structure nor an administrative office in Estonia, as required by Estonian law. In 1994, another unexpected event came to be added to the above. A petition signed by the representatives of 54 out of the 83 Orthodox parishes in Estonia formally requested to join the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. The 54 parishes represented the majority of the Orthodox believers in the country, and included both Estonian-speaking and Russian-speaking communities. A year later, a series of negotiations between the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Russian Orthodox Patriarchate failed to reach a solution." "On 25 May 1995 Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, while in Finland, made a broadcast appeal to the Orthodox believers in Estonia, in which he called them to 'revive as soon as possible the Estonian Autonomous Orthodox Church in direct communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate'."
"On 3 January 1996, a delegation of the Russian Orthodox Church visited the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul for bilateral negotiations about the division among the Orthodox in Estonia. No agreement was reached, but the two sides agreed upon the continuation of the negotiations in Moscow on 2 February of the same year."
"On 4 January 1996, the Ecumenical Patriarch sent a pastoral letter «to the Orthodox communities in Estonia», in which he expressed his desire to «reactivate» the Autonomous Estonian Apostolic Church on the basis of the Tome (or decision) of the Ecumenical Patriarch in 1923. The letter expressed the hope to unite all in one church with a distinct diocese for the Russian-speaking parishes. On 16 January 1996, a delegation from the Ecumenical Patriarchate, including one Finnish Orthodox bishop and one priest, visited Estonia in an attempt to reach a viable solution. They met with representatives of the Moscow Patriarchate and the Estonian State authorities, including Prime Minister Tiit Vähi and the President Lennart Meri. After the meeting, statements were issued that the Ecumenical Patriarchate would accept Estonian Orthodox believers under its jurisdiction, but that it would also accept the division of the Orthodox community in Estonia into two parts and their belonging to two jurisdictions."
History of the schism.
20 February 1996 decision of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.
On 20 February 1996, saying it was "following the persistent request of the Estonian Government and the overwhelming majority of the Estonian Orthodox parishes, which requested they be placed again under the aegis of the Ecumenical Patriarchate," the Ecumenical Patriarchate decided to reestablish an Orthodox church in Estonia under the Ecumenical Patriarchate's canonical jurisdiction as an by reactivating the tomos of 1923 which had been issued by Ecumenical Patriarch Meletios IV.
On 22 February 1996, the Ecumenical Patriarchate officially announced its decision to reactivate the tomos of 1923 and to re-establish the Autonomous Estonian Apostolic Church. This was done on the basis of the EAOC's continued existence in exile in Sweden.
On 24 February 1996, a delegation of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, led by , concelebrated the Divine Liturgy with Estonian clergy and in the presence of Archbishop John of Finland at the Church of the Transfiguration of Our Lord in Tallinn. That act marked the reactivation of the Autonomous Estonian Apostolic Church. On the same day, the Chief Secretariat of the synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate issued an official communiqué. In that communiqué, it was announced that Archbishop John of Karelia, primate of the Finnish Orthodox Church, had been assigned as "locum tenens" of the Autonomous Estonian Apostolic Church.
Excommunication of the Ecumenical Patriarchate by the Russian Orthodox Church.
On 23 February 1996, the Russian Orthodox Church decided to declare the Ecumenical Patriarch and the Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church "as schismatic", "to suspend canonical and Eucharistic communion with the Patriarchate of Constantinople... and to omit the name of the Patriarch of Constantinople in the diptych of the Primates of the Local Orthodox Churches".
The next day, on 24 February, to justify the Ecumenical Patriarchate's decision taken on 20 February 1996, the Ecumenical Patriarchate issued a communiqué, and the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew sent a letter to the then-Patriarch of Moscow Alexy II.
Negotiations between the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Russian Orthodox Church.
On 3 and 22 April in 1996, the Joint Commission of the Patriarchates of Constantinople and Moscow met in Zurich to discuss the situation. On 4 March, head of the DECR, Metropolitan Kirill, said the transfer of the EAOC under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate was "canonically illegal" and that the ROC was ready to negotiate with the Ecumenical Patriarchate on the issue.
Agreement and resolutions.
On 16 May 1996, an agreement was reached and the communion between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Ecumenical Patriarchate was restored.
Both parties agreed:
 ;templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" / ;1. "to let the Orthodox Christians in Estonia freely decide to which church jurisdiction they wish to belong"
2. "[That] the Patriarchate of Constantinople [would] agre[e] to suspend for 4 months its decision of 20 February 1996 to establish the Autonomous Church in the jurisdiction of Constantinople on the territory of Estonia and committed itself, together with the Moscow Patriarchate 'to cooperate in the matter of presenting their positions to the Estonian government with the objective that all Orthodox Christians have equal rights, including the right to property'."
This agreement "de facto" led to the existence of two Orthodox churches on the Estonian territory: the Estonian Orthodox Church of Moscow Patriarchate and the Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church. By this agreement, both the EAOC and the ROC agreed to tolerate each other "at least temporarily". After this decision, in Estonia 54 parishes were part of the EAOC, 29 were part of the ROC.
In September 1996, it was decided to prolong for another three months the moratorium concerning the Ecumenical Patriarchate's 20 February 1996 decision to reactivate its tomos. Other subsequent