THE ESTONIAN AND LATVIAN ORTHODOX CHURCHES OF THE MOSCOW PATRIARCHATE BEFORE AND AFTER THE RUSSIAN WAR IN UKRAINE

From the beginning of the Russian war in Ukraine the Baltic Orthodox churches subordinated to the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) have gone through considerable changes in their canonical status but have also stood out with controversial public statements about the war. In this article we analyze how the Orthodox churches of the Moscow Patriarchate have reacted to the Russian war in Ukraine and what have been the major canonical changes in Latvia and Lithuania. Additionally, we describe the most important narratives, which the churches have used when speaking about the ongoing war and pay attention to the reaction, which these narratives have received by the public and state authorities of the Baltic States. We focus on Estonia and Latvia in more detail and analyze the events in Lithuania in more general lines. To understand the events and statements of the recent years, we first pay attention to the history of Baltic Orthodox communities, because the structures of the churches in question and the identity of the Orthodox communities have been established in course of the political and social changes of over the 19th and 20th centuries.