War often has a chilling effect on freedom. Sometimes this is necessary. Being at war necessitates restrictions that would be completely out of place in normal society. This expectation is even written into international law, with clear examples and acceptable reasons – especially during war – for restrictions on human rights and personal freedoms.
Yet what we are seeing in Eastern Europe is far from necessary. By all manner of standards that are accepted around the world, and even by the nations in question, what we are beginning to see is an outrageous rejection of liberal norms in the name of ‘national security’. While war allows for restrictions, this is not blanket permission, and the justifications for the incoming end to religious freedom in countries such as Ukraine and Estonia are insufficient.
In the face of Russia’s unjust and unprovoked war of aggression, Ukraine has resisted heroically. However, in the process, the Zelensky government is losing sight of one of the many features of Putin’s Russia that makes it so repressive. The values of a democratic nation that respects international law is under threat through its planned ban on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church over ‘national security’. There has already been widespread civil conflict with the arrest and ill-treatment of clergy, the closure and seizure of churches and monasteries and assaults on parishioners.
The ban violates Ukraine’s international treaty commitments, including Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
It is a ban that has been condemned globally by religious groups including the late Pope, the Church of England and the World Council of Churches. Rights groups such as Human Rights Watch and UN bodies have spoken out against the law as well.
But it is not just Ukraine that is turning its back on religious freedom. Amid legitimate concern of the threat from Russia, Estonia is passing a law against the Estonian Orthodox Church, also on the spurious grounds of ‘national security’ over the EOC’s alleged ties to the Russian Orthodox Church.
If Ukraine’s ban is unjustifiable and in breach of its legal obligations while at war, how can Estonia think that its proposed peacetime ban is acceptable? It has no fig leaf to hide behind in its unnecessary and unacceptable efforts to destroy one of its oldest Christian churches. To deprive close to a tenth of its population of its religion is a disgrace. This would include dismantling the Puhtitsa Convent, one of the largest Orthodox communities in the Baltic states.
The ban hinges on the EOC’s supposed ties to Russia, which are, if I am being generous, tenuous. As with most historic Orthodox churches in Eastern Europe, the EOC shares a canonical past with the Russian Orthodox Church. Yet the EOC is self-governing, adheres to Estonian law and has repeatedly denounced the invasion. As part of that rejection of the invasion, the EOC made changes to its name and to its statutes to reflect its independence from Moscow.
The idea that the EOC supports Russia is patently nonsense. How else can you read a statement such as ‘The United Nations General Assembly has condemned Russia’s military actions in Ukraine. As representatives of the member churches of the Estonian Council of Churches, we share and support this assessment’?
Or there’s this statement from its former leader, currently banned from entering Estonia: ‘On March 19 2022, I joined a statement from the Estonian Council of Churches (Eesti Kirikute Nõukogu) which condemned the war and called for an end to hostilities. My position has not changed since then’.
Let’s turn to the Head of the Puhtitsa Convent – Abbess Filareta, who said that ‘it is self-evident that the Baltic States are independent and only a foolish person would argue otherwise’.
I am appalled that Estonia is continuing to press on. As an international community, we need to hold the Estonian government to account and ensure that religious freedom is upheld, and the rights of its citizens are maintained.
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