New Religious Minorities in the Baltic States

Abstract

Although Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are united by their common past under the Soviet regime, the religious situation is quite different in these three Baltic States today. The first difference relates to the religious demography in each country. In Estonia, there are over 170,000 members of the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church, over 30,000 members of the Russian Orthodox Church, 30,000 members of the Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church (EAOC), and over 5,000 members of the Union of Estonian Old Believer congregations. The majority of believers are Lutherans and Orthodox. Nonetheless, there are also communities of Baptist (about 6,100 members), Methodist (about 2,000 members), Roman Catholic (about 3,500 members) and other Christian denominations. Among new religious minorities in Estonia, the Union of Jehovah’s Witnesses (about 3,900 members), the Union of Estonian Evangelistic Christian Pentecostal Congregations (about 3,500 members), the Union of Estonian Full Gospel Congregations (about 1,000 members), and the Union of Estonian Christian Free Congregations (about 1,000 members) are the most active.1 Religious life in contemporary Latvia could be characterized by the coexistence of five equally strong Christian confessions that claim to represent the priority of the Christian tradition in the life of Latvian society and are regarded by public opinion as the traditional confessions in Latvia. As of the beginning of 2000, these churches have provided the following estimates of church membership to the Latvian Ministry of Justice: about 400,000 Latvian Evangelical Lutheran believers, about 500,000 Roman Catholic believers, about 190,000 Orthodox Believers, about 70,000 Old Believers, and about 6,000 Baptists.2 These Christian denominations have endured historical vicissitudes for several centuries. They have demonstrated that their teachings and activities do not contradict the norms of morality existing in Latvian society. The Jewish community (about 6,000 members) has also been accepted as a traditional denomination similar to the above-mentioned Christian confessions in Latvia. Although Latvian legislation has not officially defined what reli-