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Religion

Table of Contents

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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