I will talk of two people – a man and his daughter, although other individuals come into the story. I appreciate what Nikolai Päts (1871-1940) did for the Estonian Orthodoxy before 1940, so I consider him a great man. However, his grave is unmarked in Tallinn and he is little known in the country. He had five children, three of them died before 1944 and the youngest two fled to the West in 1944.
However, I will begin with a building.
If you have been to Tallinn – you would know this – Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, built in Tsarist Russia in 1900. Its ownership has recently been in the news because of the Russian Metropolitan Kirill’s statement justifying the war in Ukraine. Moscow still thinks that the Cathedral belongs to Russia. However, in the late 1930s when archpriest Nikolai Päts was in charge of the Cathedral, the building – and the whole Orthodox Church of Estonia – achieved its independence from Moscow. Nikolai Päts had consistently argued for this for more than 10 years. All the same, it is not clear what role exactly he himself had in this. There must have been pressure also from his brother Konstantin Päts, President of the country. The archives in Moscow would tell us more, but for the moment they are inaccessible.
Become a subscriber to continue reading!
Every week we bring you news from the community and exclusive columns. We're relying on your support to keep going and invite you to subscribe.
Starting from $2.30 per week.
