Eastern Orthodox Church

=====1996=====
{{main|1996 Moscow–Constantinople schism}}
Since 1923, the [[Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church|Orthodox Church of Estonia]] separated from the [[Russian Orthodox Church]] due to the imprisonment of [[Patriarch Tikhon of Moscow]], and the church in the [[Republic of Estonia]] falling out of communication with the Russian Church. They petitioned to be placed under direct control of the [[Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople]], operating as an autonomous church. In 1944 the [[Soviet Union]] annexed Estonia and outlawed the Orthodox Church of Estonia, forcefully bringing their churches back under the control of the Moscow Patriarch. However, the church's Primate, Metropolitan Aleksander, fled to [[Sweden]] with 21 clergymen and 8,000 followers and established a synod there operating there throughout the [[Cold War]].<ref name="Toom">Toom, Tarmo. [https://books.google.com/books?id=JmFetR5Wqd8C&dq=The%20encyclopedia%20of%20Eastern%20Orthodox%20Christianity&pg=PA226 "Estonia, Orthodox Church in"], ''The Encyclopedia of Eastern Orthodox Christianity'', p.226-8, Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, 2011.</ref>

In 1993, the synod of the Orthodox Church of Estonia in Exile was re-registered and on 20 February 1996, [[Bartholomew I of Constantinople]] restored the church's position as subordinate to Constantinople, not Moscow. [[Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow]], who had been born in Estonia, rejected this loss of territory, and severed ties with Patriarch Bartholomew on February 23, removing his name from the diptychs. The two sides would then negotiate in [[Zürich]], and a settlement was reached on 16 May 1996. In it, the ethnically Estonian population of Estonia would be under the jurisdiction of the [[Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church]], while the ethnically Russian population of Estonia would be under the jurisdiction of the [[Estonian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate]]. After signing the document the Russian Church restored communion with the Orthodox Church.<ref name=":6">{{Cite web|url=https://mospat.ru/archive/en/2000/11/se011081/|title=Statement of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church 8 November 2000: Russian Orthodox Church.|date=12 November 2000|website=Department for External Church Relations of the Russian Orthodox Church|language=en-US|access-date=2018-11-01|quote=Patriarch Bartholomew issued an 'Act' on 20 February 1996 on the renewal of the 1923 Tomos of Patriarch Meletius IV and on the establishment of the 'Autonomous Orthodox Estonian Metropolia' on the territory of Estonia. Temporal administration was entrusted to Archbishop John of Karelia and All Finland. A schismatic group headed by the suspended clergymen was accepted into canonical communion. Thus the schism in Estonia became a reality.<br /><br />On 23 February 1996, in response to the one-sided and illegal actions of Patriarch Bartholomew the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church resolved to recognise them 'as schismatic and compelling our Church to suspend canonical and Eucharistic communion with the Patriarchate of Constantinople… and to omit the name of the Patriarch of Constantinople in the diptych of the Primates of the Local Orthodox Churches.'|archive-date=12 June 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180612143211/https://mospat.ru/archive/en/2000/11/se011081/}}</ref><ref name=":1"/>