From Empire to Nation State: The Consolidation of the Relationship between the Orthodox Church and Independent Lithuania and Latvia after the First Word War

Abstract

In the new independent nation states that appeared on the Western edge of the Russian Empire after 1917, the local Orthodox Church had to rethink its identity completely mainly for two reasons. First, it was no longer the dominant church and second, the new states claimed to be secular, not privileging any particular religious organisation. In all these states, from Finland to Poland, the Orthodox faithful were, moreover, a minority. This paper is a comparison of the relationship between the secular state and the Orthodox Church in Latvia and Lithuania. It covers the time period from 1917 until the late 1920s, when the relationship in both states had been consolidated. The relationship between the church and the state is complicated by the incompatibility of the religious and the secular discourse. The church operates on the basis of ecclesiastical or canon law, which regulates the way it is internally organised and how it relates to other churches. Secular law, on the other hand, regulates the way citizens interact with the state. While these two types of law fulfil similar regulative, preventive and control functions, they differ in their origins. Secular law is based on state authority; it is usually codified and can in principle be applied by anyone able to read. Orthodox canon law, on the other hand, is based on divine authority, handed down to earth by God through Jesus Christ and the apostles in a long chain through the centuries to the local bishop.1 Therefore, the position and authority in the church hierarchy of the responsible bishop is more important than the letter of the law. More importantly,