Orthodoxy in Estonia

Eastern Orthodoxy in Estonia is practiced by 12.8% of the population, making it the second most identified religion in this majority-secular state after Lutheran Christianity with 13.6%. Eastern Orthodoxy, or more specifically Eastern Orthodox Christianity, is mostly practiced within Estonia's Russian ethnic minority. According to the 2000 Estonian census, 72.9% of those who identified as Orthodox Christians were of Russian descent.

Today, there are two branches of the Eastern Orthodox Church operating in Estonia: the Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church, an autonomous church under the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, and the Estonian Orthodox Church of Moscow Patriarchate, a semi-autonomous church of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Orthodoxy was most likely first introduced in the 10th through 12th centuries by missionaries from Novgorod and Pskov active among the Estonians in the southeast regions of the area close to Pskov. The first mention of an Orthodox congregation in Estonia dates from 1030. Around 600 AD on the east side of Toome Hill (Toomemägi) the Estonians established the town Tarbatu (modern Tartu). In 1030, the Kievan prince, Yaroslav the Wise, raided Tarbatu and built his own fort called Yuryev, as well as, allegedly, a congregation in a cathedral dedicated to his patron saint, St. George. The congregation may have survived until 1061, when, according to chronicles, Yuryev was burned to the ground and the Orthodox Christians expelled.

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