Religion
Table of Contents
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Institutional organisation
Although official statistics imply one congregation for every 2700 inhabitants, only 16% of the population have formalised their ties to a specific congregation. Most Estonians ...
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Recent historical background of the religious situation in Estonia
Contemporary Estonian society reflects the impact of fifty years of Soviet colonialism, which was characterised by consistent attempts to neutralise the cultural autonomy of the ...
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Lutheranism
After Reformation reached Estonia in the 1520s Lutheranism developed into the largest religious affiliation. Until the end of the 19th century Lutheran clergy, in towns ...
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Re-initiated and new religious movements
One of the first movements to gain a lot of publicity in the late 1980s was the ‘Word of Life’, which got its start mainly ...
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Earlier awakening movements
Protestant movements new to Estonia, including Adventists and Methodists arrived at the end of the 19th century, Pentecostalists at the end of the first decade ...
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The Moravian movement
The Herrnhut movement eventually had a role in the national and cultural development of Estonia since it encouraged literacy and other cultural pursuits, such as ...
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Catholicism
The Moravian movement was not the first contact Estonians had with Christianity. The first influences arrived through paths of war and by trade routes, both ...
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Orthodoxy
In 1993 the EAOC resumed the continuity of its activity in Estonia: the majority of contemporary Estonian Orthodox congregations belongs to this church. The official ...
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Pre-Christian native religion and attempts of restoration
With the national awakening during the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, a renewed interest developed in pre-Christian worldview and religion ...
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Earth Religion
One can say that the Earth-religion is an umbrella term for various traditions which in one or other way are based either on conjectures about ...
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New Age
Among those waiting for the ‘New Age’ is a prophet Anon (Peeter Novod) who leads the Estonian Quaker Saint Michael’s Revelation congregation. According to ...
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Buddhism in Estonia
At the end of the 1980s, however, the Estonian Buddhist Union re-started its activity. Out of its work emerged two Buddhist congregations which are active ...
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Ethnic religious minorities
Islam
Historically the history of Islam in Estonia is connected with the local Tatar minority: a sizeable Tatar community came to Estonia in the 19th ...
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Secularism in Estonian society
This does not mean, however, that Estonians are by nature non-religious. The religiosity of Estonians is simply extremely privatised religious convictions are considered private and ...
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