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Institute of Theology of the EELC


EduCativ

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Estonia was Christianized in the 13th century. The Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church (EELC) has grown out of the Reformation of the 16th century. From the end of the 16th century, Estonia's territory became part of the Kingdom of Sweden; from the 18th century until the beginning of the 20th century, it belonged to the Russian Empire. For centuries Lutheranism was the predominant faith of Estonian peasants and the ruling Baltic-German nobility.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Estonia was administratively and ecclesiastically divided into Estland in the north and Livland in the south. Altogether, Lutheran congregations of the Russian Evangelical Lutheran Church formed eight consistorial districts across the Russian Empire and were subordinated to the General Consistory in St Petersburg. The General Consistory was the church's higher ecclesiastical authority, but not the highest power in administrative matters, as the church was subordinate to the Russian Ministry of Interior, the Senate, and the Tsar.
The church was often called Landeskirche. All local Lutheran peasants had to belong to an individual parish, but they were not allowed to participate in their congregation's governing bodies. Like society in general, local parishes and the church were governed by the Baltic-German nobility, mostly local manor owners. Until 1920 the majority of the clergy were also of Baltic German origin. As the Baltic Germans and the Russian government were unable to create a socially stable and nationally balanced political system, the end of the 19th century saw an Estonian civil society based on national values and national history. Until establishing an independent state, it functioned as a parallel society, with its social organizations, newspapers, and, from the beginning of the 20th century, political parties.
The Faculty of Theology at the University of Tartu was responsible for educating clergy and distinguished history and reputation. It was the only Evangelical Faculty in the Russian Empire and educated Lutheran ministers for the entire Russian Evangelical Lutheran Church. Lutheranism in Estonia was influenced foremost by German culture and theology.
The First World War resulted in the fall of the Russian Empire in 1917, soon followed by establishing the newly independent Baltic republics in 1918. It coincided with the establishment of independent churches. The Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church was born due to the First Church Congress in 1917 when Lutheran parish representatives in Estonia decided to reorganize the church as a free people's church. The new church order aimed to unite all members into one organization to feel at home in their church.
The new church became now an episcopal-synodical body, with a democratic order. Its parliament (Church Diet) had more than 500 members, the church government (Consistory) was led by the bishop and had a lay vice president, the church had its court system for religious matters. According to the rules, there were no limitations based on property or social position to participate in church governing. In 1919 the Baltic-Germans lost their leading position in the church. The first bishop of the church was Jakob Kukk, who served as the leader of the EELC until he died in 1933.
The Republic of Estonia passed its first constitution in 1920, stating that there was no state religion. Although the church had aimed for self-rule too, and the state had approved the new approach, the church was now deprived of nearly all of its public functions as an outcome of the new policy. From the second half of the 1920s, the church gradually handed over its duties of registering births, deaths, marriages, and divorces. The clergy retained the right to register marriages as authorized civil servants. With the land reform passed in 1919, the church lost most of its properties in rural areas, which weakened the church's position. The system of compulsory tax and regulative tax, with landowners financing the church, was abolished. The church now functioned only with the support of its members and their voluntary annual contributions.
The implementation of the new church order and the new leadership's election went hand in hand with a new mentality, changing the orientation and working methods of the church.
The Estonians responsible for reorganizing the church at the beginning of the 1920s did everything to free the church and Estonian Lutheranism from anything that resembled the previous Landeskirche, a church for the nobility, or the Herrenkirche, as it was often called. Where previously the church had belonged to German Lutheranism, Scandinavian churches and the Church of England now received maximum attention. The Swedish Archbishop Nathan Söderblom consecrated bishop Jakob Kukk, and the Church of Finland was among the most influential partners of the EELC.
From personal contacts, relations were established between religious societies and at the end of the 1930s, even between a few parishes. The Finno-Ugric cooperation between the two churches culminated in the first Finnish-Estonian pastor's congress, which took place during the fourth Finno-Ugric cultural congress in 1931. In the 1930s, cooperation grew closer to the Church of England. After two negotiations in 1936 and 1938, the churches of Estonia, Latvia, and England signed a joint report on cooperation.
During the first period of Estonian independence from 1918 to 1940, the EELC was the majority church in Estonian society, with 78% of the population identifying as Lutherans.
The church, representing Christian values, was the moral cornerstone for the majority of Estonian people. However, Estonian society showed signs of rapid secularization already in the 1920s and 1930s, so that the numbers of baptisms and confirmations decreased more than one third during the period.
In 1940, during the Second World War, the three Baltic States' independence was forcefully interrupted. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were annexed in 1940 by the Soviet Union (USSR) and were forced under Soviet rule. In a de facto atheist state, religion was considered a relic and something society needed to overcome. For this reason, the activity of churches was strictly regulated and monitored. It was made difficult in every possible way to be a religious person or a church member. Church organizations, missionary activity, and youth work was criminalized as religious propaganda.
Publishing activity was also prohibited. Consequently, church buildings remained the only places for worship and practicing religion because any other public expression of religion was prohibited. The clergy fell victim to repressions, and many pastors were forced to become agents and keep an eye on their colleagues. Many church buildings were used as warehouses or gyms or were just left in ruins.
It was essentially a society of fear, which the Soviet authorities had established and controlled, leaving little room for religious freedom. Nevertheless, for the churches, the situation improved starting from the second half of the 1950s. Although the mainline was firm, the authorities were not very consistent in putting policy into practice. As several institutions were dealing with religion and were hardly in agreement with each other, their actions were not always coordinated.
The Faculty of Theology in Tartu was closed and replaced by a theological institute supported by the church. The institute did not offer full-time studies, which affected the quality of theological education. Despite German Protestants being one of the closest partners of the EELC, the German tradition slowly but steadily faded from the church's sub-consciousness.
Although the isolation had consequences for the church's theological profile, there were theologians with admirable wisdom and talent who managed to publish translated articles and their work in volumes of typewritten copies, which were distributed in small numbers among students and pastors.


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