CONTACT: Joretta Purdue
WASHINGTON (UMNS) - World War II bombers destroyed their principal church. Their clergy were executed or sent to Siberia. Congregations were persecuted and many went "underground" -- all because they were Methodists.
The United Methodist Church of Estonia, under Soviet communism for half a century, might have died out -- as did neighbors in Latvia, Lithuania and the Soviet Union itself. But Estonian Methodists persisted, their faith as unbroken as Christians under siege in ancient Rome.
Now Methodism is thriving in newly independent Estonia at the eastern edge of the Baltic Sea. From a total of 16 churches before the Soviet Union seized Estonia in 1940, the number has grown to 22 less than five years after achieving independence, and more are planned.
Estonia is about half the size of Maine and has a population of 1.6 million.
Despite the country's huge death toll in World War II, membership has risen from 1,600 a half century ago to more than 2,000 plus several hundred children in Sunday schools. The largest Methodist seminary in Europe, the Baltic Mission Center opened recently in Tallinn, the capital, and is training ministers from many parts of Europe.
"It is by God's grace that we persisted," said Superintendent Olav Parnamets of the Estonian United Methodist Church, while visiting the United States. "We had faithful people and faithful leadership in those difficult years. They didn't escape but remained with the flock of the Lord -- and some paid a very high price for that."
While most religious services were prohibited by the communists, musical events were permitted. So the Methodists organized "sing-alongs" which included hymns and other observances. They also devised "birthday parties" which secretly served as Sunday schools for the children.
Parnamets maintains that the church is enjoying a renaissance because "there was a desperate need for Methodism and its tolerance and zeal for evangelism. There was a vacuum and we helped to fill it."
The Estonian church has long had a close relationship with American Methodists, who opened missions in the eastern Baltic about 100 years ago. But it was those same ties that put eastern European Methodists in jeopardy when the communists took over Russia in 1917 and seized Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in 1940.
Parnamets says the late Soviet Premier Stalin disliked religion in general but Methodism in particular because of its links to the West. Most, if not all, Methodist churches in the Soviet Union were closed in the 1920s and 1930s, and Lithuanian and Latvian Methodist churches were shut down after the Soviets seized the three countries. United Methodism is now being reestablished in all those countries.
Many United Methodists in the United States -- including groups in Illinois, Mississippi and Virginia -- have contributed money or labor to the rebuilding of churches and other buildings in Estonia. Methodists in other countries, including South Korea, also have contributed generously.
Much of the help has been concentrated on the Baltic Mission Center, a $4 million project which will serve not only as the seminary but also as a sanctuary. After wartime destruction of the central church in Tallinn, the nation's largest Methodist congregation met in borrowed halls belonging to other denominations.
The cornerstone was laid in 1994, and a portion of the building is now open for use. Parnamets said the present class of 52 seminarians already is a unifying factor in the turbulent affairs of eastern Europe.
"Half of the students are of Russian descent or from Russia itself," the superintendent noted. "In the Baltic Center, historical enemies have met in Jesus Christ and have achieved love and understanding of each other."
Parnamets recalls a young Russian "hippie" -- complete with dyed green hair -- who happened to attend a Methodist meeting while he was visiting in Estonia. "Our Methodists prayed with him, and the result was he opened his heart to Jesus Christ." The young man returned to Russia and was instrumental in forming a Methodist church in Samara, a city of 1.5 million. The church has 1,000 members and is growing.
Unfortunately, the Baltic Center is tens of thousands of dollars behind in fund raising. Builders have stopped working until more money is available.
"We are in crisis, and there simply isn't that kind of money available from Estonian Methodists," said Parnamets. "So we hope that others will help us finish this project. It is so important, and there is so much yet to do."
Spring 1996
The Baltic Mission Center has been assigned Advance Special No. 010923-5AN by the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries in New York. More information may be obtained from the United Methodist Church in Estonia, Apteegi 3, EE0001 Tallinn, Estonia.
Produced by United Methodist News Service, official news agency of the United Methodist Church, with offices in Nashville, Tenn., New York, and Washington.
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