Estonia’s Orthodox church that declared independence from Russia is still run by Moscow, intelligence report says

Estonia's internal security service concluded in its 2026 annual report that the Estonian Christian Orthodox Church (ECOC) remains under Russian control despite formally declaring independence and changing its name — while seven of its clergy were banned from the country over two years for supporting Russia's ongoing war against Ukraine.

Independence in name only

The ECOC, formerly the Estonian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, adopted a new name in 2025 and introduced statutory amendments to present itself as self-governing. Estonia's security service assessed the changes as cosmetic. 

Real guidance and coordination continue to flow from two Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) bodies operating in the name of Patriarch Vladimir Gundyayev (Patriarch Kirill): the Department for External Church Relations and the Administration for the Affairs of Dioceses in the Near Abroad. The latter was established on 24 March 2022 — one month after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Its existence, the report notes, reflects Moscow's continued view that the Baltic states belong to Russia's so-called "near abroad."

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The church's formal head, Metropolitan Yevgeny, was forced to leave Estonia in February 2024 after authorities declined to renew his residence permit on security grounds. He never resigned. The ECOC continues to be led remotely from Russia by Yevgeny, who had repeatedly refused Estonian government requests to distance himself from Patriarch Kirill's war-justifying rhetoric. 

Estonia's parliament designated the Moscow Patriarchate a sponsor of Russian aggression in May 2024.

Clergy banned, nuns collecting weapons

Estonia imposed Schengen or national entry bans on six ECOC-linked clergy in 2025 and one more in February 2026. All were found to support Russia's war effort or pose a security threat.

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Two banned nuns came from the Exaltation of the Cross Jerusalem Stavropegial Convent near Moscow and were employed by the ECOC. The report says the convent supports Russia’s war by collecting supplies for troops, visiting wounded soldiers, and sending aid to occupied Ukrainian territories. It also works with the All-Russia People’s Front under Sergei Kiriyenko and treats Patriarch Kirill’s appeal as “an order from a commander-in-chief.”

The report highlights Dmitri Burov, known as monk-priest Daniil, who left Estonia in February 2026. Before arriving in 2017, he led an ROC department working with Russia’s military and law enforcement. In Estonia, he and another ROC cleric filmed the Kuperjanov Battalion’s barracks in Võru. He later refused to answer Estonian questions about Russian intelligence and the war against Ukraine.

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Russia's SVR weighs in

The report flags a statement issued by Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) on 12 January 2026 claiming to defend Orthodoxy in the Baltic states from the activities of the "anti-Christ" — cited alongside the clergy bans and weapons deliveries as evidence of what the report calls "the close interweaving of state power, intelligence services and the ROC."