Estonia, historically a Lutheran Christian nation,[1] [2] is today one of the least religious countries in the world in terms of declared attitudes, with only 14 percent of the population declaring religion to be an important part of their daily life.[3] This is thought to largely be a result of the Soviet occupation of Estonia in 1940, prior to which Estonia had a large Christian majority.
The religious population is predominantly Christian and includes followers of 90 affiliations. According to the Estonian Council of Churches data from December 2019, 13.8 percent of the population belong to the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church, while 13.1 percent belong to the Estonian Orthodox Church of Moscow Patriarchate (EOCMP), and 2.3 percent belong to the Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church. The Union of Free Evangelical and Baptist Churches of Estonia and the Catholic Church in Estonia together comprise 1 percent of the population. Other Christian groups, including Jehovah’s Witnesses, Pentecostals, Methodists, Seventh-day Adventists, and Russian Old Believers, collectively constitute 1.1 percent of the population.
According to Ringo Ringvee, "religion has never played an important role on the political or ideological battlefield" and the "tendencies that prevailed in the late 1930s for closer relations between the state and Lutheran church were ended with the Soviet occupation in 1940". He further states that "the chain of religious traditions was broken in most families" under the Soviet policy of state atheism.[4] Before the Second World War, Estonia was approximately 80 percent Protestant and overwhelmingly Lutheran, partly because of historic Swedish rule. Under Russian and Soviet rule, this predominance greatly decreased, while Eastern Orthodoxy increased due to immigration of Russians.
Between 2001 and 2011 census, Eastern Orthodoxy overtook Lutheranism to become the largest Christian denomination in the country due to increasing lack of affiliation and very few conversions among Estonians, as well as due to steady or even increased religious affiliation among the Russian-speaking minorities. Lutheranism still remains the most popular religious group among ethnic Estonians (11 percent of them are Lutherans while also 2 percent of them are Orthodox), while Eastern Orthodoxy is practised mainly by the mostly non-indigenous Slavic minorities (approximately 45 per cent of them are Orthodox). According to the University of Tartu, irreligious Estonians are not necessarily atheists; instead, the 2010s have witnessed a growth of Neopagan, Buddhist and Hindu beliefs among those who declare themselves to be "not religious".[5]
In the 13th century, the Teutonic Knights brought Christianity to Estonia as part of the Livonian Crusade and during the Protestant Reformation, the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church became the established church.[6] Before the Second World War, Estonia was approximately 80% Protestant; overwhelmingly Lutheran, with individuals adhering to Calvinism, as well as other Protestant branches. Robert T. Francoeur and Raymond J. Noonan write that "In 1925, the church was separated from the state, but religious instruction remained in the schools and clergymen were trained at the Faculty of Theology at Tartu University. With the Soviet occupation and the implementation of anti-Christian legislation, the church lost over two thirds of its clergy. Work with children, youth, publishing, and so on, was banned, church property was nationalized, and the Faculty of Theology was closed."[7] Aldis Purs, a professor of history at the University of Toronto writes that in Estonia, as well as Latvia, some evangelical Christian clergy attempted to resist the Soviet policy of state atheism by engaging in anti-regime activities such as Bible smuggling.[8] The text titled World and Its Peoples: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland, published by the Marshall Cavendish, states that in addition to the Soviet antireligious campaign in Estonia, which mandated the confiscation of church property and deportation of theologians to Siberia, many "churches were destroyed in the German occupation of Estonia, from 1941 through 1944, and in World War II (1939–1945)".[9] After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, this antireligious legislation was annulled.[10]
Modern Estonian Christian theology often revolves around religious rituals rather than trying to preach to or convert Estonians. Christian religious workers don't have a large social role in most towns.[11]
There were two Orthodox Christian Churches in Estonia – the Estonian Orthodox Church, which was part of the Moscow Patriarchate, and the Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church under Constantinople.[12] The Estonian Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople is a small group which is barely heard of outside Estonia. The membership of the Apostolic Orthodox was about 30,000 in 1996. Since 1840 many Lutherans converted to Orthodox Christianity which resulted in the rise of the Orthodox in Estonia. In 1920, the Apostolic Orthodox Church became autonomous from the Russian Patriarch Tikhon. The reoccupation of Estonia state by the Soviet Union ended the autonomy of the Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church however, the autonomy was regained in 1996 after Estonia regained her independence under the Soviet Union. The number of the Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church during the Soviet era was about 200,000 out of which 80% were native Estonians.
The division between the two Orthodox Christian churches in Estonia is relative. The Estonian Apostolic Orthodox is dominated by ethnic Estonians whereas the majority of the Estonian Orthodox Church are ethnic Russians. The communication and cooperation between the believers of the two Orthodox communities in Estonia is a social practice and occurs at the individual level. A research by Tom Esslemon in 2011[13] revealed that fewer than one in five Estonians claim plays an important role in their lives. According to the 2000 Estonian census, 29% of the total population belonged to some religion[14] An Eurobarometer poll in 2005 claimed only 16% of Estonians believe in God however, 54% believed in some sort of spirit or life force.
Religious revivals from the 1870s culminated in Pentecostal movements in Estonia. Foreign missionaries from Sweden and Finland brought full fledged Pentecostalism to Estonia in the 1920s.[15] In 1873, the Swedish Evangelical society, the Evangelical Homeland Foundation sent missionaries to Estonia at the request of the Lutheran clergy of the Coastal Swedes. These missionaries, Thure Emmanuel Thoren and Lars Osterblom started the revival among the coastal Swedes. The Revivalists broke from the Lutheran Church in 1880. The revival movement had spread to Western Estonia and they were called Ridala in 1879. The revival brought more charismatic activities such as jumping, clapping, dancing and speaking in tongues. In the later part of the 1960s, the activities of the Finnish missionaries brought charismatic Pentecostal revival in the evangelical Christian Churches and the Baptist in Tallinn. The healing ministry in the 1970s has had a great impact on the charismatic movement in the Soviet Union.
The Estonian Christian Pentecostal Church is the biggest Pentecostal Church in Estonia. It was started in 1989. There are also the Association of Estonian Evangelical Christian Pentecostal congregations, the Association of Estonian Christian Free Churches and many other independent churches. There seems to be little written history about the Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity in Estonia. Most of what is known about Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity comes from the memoirs of Evald Kiil (1997) who began his profession as a Pentecostal preacher in the 1930s. It is estimated that in the 1930s there were about 200 to 2000 Pentecostals in Estonia. The 1934 population census of Estonia indicates there were 191 people were Pentecostals, 459 were Free Gospel Churches and 306 were Revivalists. The 2011 population census of Estonia puts the total number of people belonging to Charismatic and Pentecostal Churches to about 5,256.
In 1884, the German Baptist pastor Adam Schiewe performed the first baptism of faith in Estonia. The Baptist church became one of the fastest growing churches in the years that followed. The Seventh-Day Adventists started in 1897. The Methodist movement has been present in Estonia since 1907. Currently the Estonian Methodists operate as the Estonian Methodist Church. The arrival of the Moravian Movement in the first half of the 18th century laid the spiritual foundation for the revivals that followed.
Less than a third of the population define themselves as believers; of those most are Eastern Orthodox, predominantly, but not exclusively, among the Slavic minorities, or Lutheran. There are also a number of smaller Muslim, Protestant, Jewish, and Buddhist groups. The organisation Maavalla Koda unites adherents of animist traditional religions (Estonian Neopaganism).[16] [17] The Russian Rodnover organisation "Vene Rahvausu Kogudus Eestis" is registered in Tartu.[18]
| Religion | 2000 | 2011 | 2021 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number | % | Number | % | Number | % | ||
| Christianity | 319,770 | 310,481 | 298,410 | ||||
| —Orthodox Christians | 143,554 | 176,773 | 181,770 | ||||
| —Lutherans | 152,237 | 108,513 | 86,030 | ||||
| —Catholics | 5,745 | 4,501 | 8,690 | ||||
| —Baptists | 6,009 | 4,507 | 5,190 | ||||
| —Jehovah's Witnesses | 3,823 | 3,938 | 3,720 | ||||
| —Pentecostals | 2,648 | 1,855 | 2,310 | ||||
| —Old Believers | 2,515 | 2,644 | 2,290 | ||||
| —Methodists | 1,455 | 1,098 | 1,390 | ||||
| —Adventists | 1,561 | 1,194 | 950 | ||||
| —Other Christians | 223 | 5,458 | 6,070 | ||||
| Islam | 1,387 | 1,508 | 5,800 | ||||
| Estonian Neopaganism | 1,058 | 2,972 | 5,630 | ||||
| —Native Faith (Maausk) | – | – | 1,925 | 3,860 | |||
| —Taaraism | – | – | 1,047 | 1,770 | |||
| Buddhism | 622 | 1,145 | 1,880 | ||||
| Other religions | 4,995 | 4,727 | 9,630 | ||||
| No religion | 450,458 | 592,588 | 650,900 | ||||
| Not stated | 343,292 | 181,104 | 141,780 | ||||
| Total population | 1,121,582 | 1,094,564 | 1,114,030 | ||||
Census statistics 2000–2021:[19]
| Ethnic group | Total population counted | Religious | Lutheran | Baptist | Other Protestant | Orthodox | Old Believer | Catholic | Jehovah's Witness | Estonian Neopagan | Muslim | Buddhist | Other religion | Not religious | Refused/ unknown | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| N | % | N | % | N | % | N | % | N | % | N | % | N | % | N | % | N | % | N | % | N | % | N | % | N | % | |||
| Estonians | 756,180 | 130,150 | 19.54 | 80,790 | 12,13 | 4,170 | 0.63 | 6,600 | 0.99 | 21,480 | 3.22 | 300 | 0.05 | 2,780 | 0.42 | 1,620 | 0.24 | 5,460 | 0.82 | 430 | 0.06 | 1,320 | 0.20 | 4,330 | 0.65 | 536,010 | 80.46 | 90,020 |
| Russians | 269,650 | 144,910 | 63.2 | 960 | 0.42 | 530 | 0.23 | 2,490 | 1.09 | 134,460 | 58.64 | 1,910 | 0.83 | 1,280 | 0.56 | 1,320 | 0.58 | 30 | 0.01 | 100 | 0.04 | 330 | 0.14 | 940 | 0.41 | 84,380 | 36.80 | 40,360 |
| Ukrainians | 24,960 | 14,050 | 65.62 | 150 | 0.70 | 170 | 0.79 | 680 | 3.18 | 11,900 | 55.58 | — | 280 | 1.31 | 360 | 1.68 | — | — | — | 460 | 2.15 | 7,360 | 34.38 | 3,550 | ||||
| Belarusians | 11,180 | 7,260 | 74.08 | — | 20 | 0.20 | 20 | 0.20 | 6,440 | 65.71 | — | 430 | 4.39 | 80 | 0.82 | — | — | — | — | 2,540 | 25.92 | 1,380 | ||||||
| Finns | 8,250 | 3,870 | 53.31 | 2,380 | 32.78 | 20 | 0.28 | 20 | 0.28 | 1,040 | 14.33 | — | — | 90 | 1.24 | — | — | — | 40 | 0.55 | 3,390 | 46,69 | 990 | |||||
| Latvians | 3,340 | 1,440 | 49.15 | 260 | 8.87 | 80 | 2.73 | — | 490 | 16.72 | — | 470 | 16.04 | — | — | — | — | — | 1,480 | 50.51 | 410 | |||||||
| Other | 40,480 | 19,660 | 55.52 | 1,400 | 3.95 | 200 | 0.56 | 700 | 1.98 | 5,970 | 16.86 | — | 3,320 | 9.38 | 220 | 0.62 | — | 5,230 | 14.77 | 90 | 0.25 | 2,240 | 6.33 | 15,740 | 44.45 | 5,070 | ||
In 2022, the country was scored 4 out of 4 for religious freedom.[29]