Orthodox Reflections

 Nicholas – member of the Western Rite Vicariate, a part of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese in America  

For the past few years, Americans have sadly gotten accustomed to our tax dollars being spent to persecute canonical Orthodox Christians in Ukraine. Since 2022, the Ukrainian government has used Russia’s “special military operation” as an excuse to intensify its persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), which it has forcibly rebranded as the “Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate.” Hundreds of church buildings have been seized by police officers and so-called “raiders” acting on the Zelensky Administration’s orders. Bishops have been imprisoned. Priests have been dragged out into the streets and beaten nearly to death. Liturgies and funerals have been disrupted by mobs. Monks are being evicted from their monasteries, with these historic properties being handed over to the schismatic Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU).

UOC Metropolitan Arseniy remains in a pre-trial detention center in Dnipro. Reports indicate the metropolitan’s cell lacks heating, potentially endangering his health due to chronic illnesses exacerbated by detention conditions. Metropolitan Arseniy is just one among many persecuted UOC hierarchs.

This YouTube clip is just one example of an extra-judicial seizure of an Ukrainian Orthodox Church parish by Orthodox Church in Ukraine “raiders”. They broke the locks and took over the parish temple, while the Ukrainian police stood idly by and watched. Considering the tenuous legal status of the UOC, which faces an outright ban on all activities, this is not surprising.

Persecution of the canonical Orthodox Church is not confined to Ukraine. Orthodox Christians in Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria are facing severe persecution and even martyrdom. The United States has announced it is dropping sanctions against the terrorist-led Syrian government, without any requirement being imposed for the protection of persecuted Christians.  The slaughter and persecution of Christians will no doubt continue in Syria. Meanwhile, despite signs that the U.S. is distancing itself from the Netanyahu regime in Israel, Trump Admin officials continue to turn a blind eye to Israeli attacks on Christians.

This is all especially galling as, prior to the 2024 elections, several high profile members of the Trump Administration were quite vocal in denouncing Christian persecution in Ukraine and even elsewhere. So far, these same individuals have remained silent even as the Ukrainian and Middle Eastern Christian persecutions worsen. Now, on Trump’s watch, Christian persecution is spreading to the U.S. vassal state of Estonia. In that Baltic country, the canonical Orthodox Church is facing the same situation as the UOC in Ukraine – the complete outlawing of all of its operations. A fact reported to the United Nations Special Procedures by Justice for All International in Geneva. From the complaint:

On 14 May 2025, Justice pour Tous Internationale (JPTi) formally submitted a comprehensive complaint to the United Nations Special Procedures concerning grave violations committed by the Republic of Estonia against 170,000 adherents of the Estonian Orthodox Christian Church (EOCC) and its canonical head, His Eminence Metropolitan Evgenii.

 

Despite a prior presidential veto citing unconstitutionality, the Estonian Parliament is now poised to reintroduce legislation that would compel the EOCC to sever its centuries-old canonical ties with the Moscow Patriarchate or face forced deregistration. This would effectively constitute a state-orchestrated schism and coerced religious realignment—actions explicitly prohibited under international human rights law, including Article 18(2) of the ICCPR.

 

JPTi calls for the immediate and unconditional reinstatement of Metropolitan Evgenii’s residence permit, which was revoked on vague national security grounds, without charges or adversarial procedure. His expulsion has deprived 170,000 Orthodox believers of episcopal guidance and sacramental continuity.

 

“What the Estonian authorities are attempting to engineer under the guise of protecting national security is not reform, but a state-orchestrated schism,” stated Sharof Azizov, Executive Director of JPTi. “Refusal to accept a state-mandated realignment is not disloyalty, but a protected act of Orthodox conscience under international law.”

 

Religious freedom, the forum internum, the ecclesiastical autonomy of Orthodox Christian believers, and the right to maintain one’s canonical identity are not matters of political discretion—they are non-derogable rights protected under international law.

Like her counterpart in Ukraine, the Estonian Orthodox Church (EOC) is an autonomous body, though Estonia has retained canonical ties with the the Moscow Patriarchate while the UOC has severed all links. The EOC is independent “in economic, administrative, educational, and social matters concerning the Church.” Despite the EOC’s administrative independence and the fact that it has repeatedly voiced its disagreement with the Ukrainian War, the Estonian government has called the EOC an “aggressor” as a pretext for forcing it to submit to Constantinople or potentially be banned altogether. Any claims of “national security” considerations are nothing more than a flimsy pretext to persecute the canonical Orthodox Church in Estonia.

His Eminence Metropolitan Evgeny of Tallinn and All Estonia who has been forced to leave his beloved Church in Estonia after the government refused to renew his residence permit. His absence from the country leaves his flock leaderless in a time of persecution. 

We ask that all readers please share the link to the complaint as widely as possible. Unless Americans and Western Europeans (Estonia receives tens of millions in foreign aid annually) are willing to speak up, the situation will only get worse.

Also, please help actively expose the role of the Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew in making the persecution in Estonia possible. The same as he did in Ukraine with OCU, Bartholomew has organized his own Church in Estonia called the Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church (EAOC). Of course this ‘church’ has come out fully in support of legally banning the larger Estonian Orthodox Church, calling plans to ban the EOC and subsume it under Constantinople’s authority “an opportunity … to find reconciliation together and prepare for a future where, while remaining true to our Church principles and foundations, all Orthodox believers living in Estonia can coexist in peace and love.”

The Patriarchate of Constantinople is an asset of the U.S. National Security State which has had as an objective, since at least the 90’s, the severing of global Orthodox Christian unity to isolate Russia.  Estonia is a further test case for destroying Orthodoxy unity by using Constantinople to build an alternate Orthodox structure within a country, declaring it “canonical”, then persecuting the real canonical Church. We cannot allow this to pass in silence in Estonia or in Ukraine or anywhere else this is attempted. The lives and freedoms of canonical Orthodox Christians should not be subject to the strategic goals of Western Globalist elites.