Fr Gintaras Sungaila, a priest of the Exarchate of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Lithuania, said Ukrainian refugees looking for a place to worship had found parishes praying for Patriarch Kirill of Moscow.
“Entering the [Russian-speaking] Orthodox churches of the Moscow Patriarchate, they asked which patriarchate they belonged to, and were told that this was the ‘Lithuanian Orthodox Church’,” Fr Gintaras Sungaila told The Tablet. Although the priests did not mention Patriarch Kirill during baptism, anointing of the sick or marriages, the Sunday services included prayers for him as “the great lord and our father, the most holy patriarch”.
The Ukrainian faithful were outraged by this, because they did not wish to be part of – let alone financially support – the Moscow Patriarchate, which justifies the war in Ukraine, Fr Sungaila said.
The Diocese of Vilnius and Lithuania, which belongs to the Moscow Patriarchate, is also vague about its status in the public sphere, denying its affiliation even though the official website of the Moscow Patriarchate clearly states in Russian that its Metropolitan Innokenty is a bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church. He served as a member of the Russian Orthodox Church’s highest governing body, the Holy Synod, in 2022, and has not objected to its leadership’s position regarding the war in Ukraine.
“It’s no secret that in Lithuania, the majority of people support Ukraine, condemn Russia’s aggression, and consider Patriarch Kirill’s position immoral and reprehensible,” said Fr Sungaila.
“If the Lithuanian public clearly understood that the structure of the Moscow Patriarchate, which supports the war in Ukraine, not only operates freely in Lithuania, but also receives funding from the Lithuanian state [as a state-recognised traditional religious community], there would probably be a great deal of indignation.”
In Estonia, Ukraine and Moldova, national governments have restricted the Moscow Patriarchate, on the grounds that it threatens national security through its advocacy of the so-called Russkyi mir (“Russian World”) ideology.
On 19 February 2025, the plenary session of the Estonian Parliament held the first reading of a bill aimed at preventing incitement to hatred and violence by religious organisations. Andre Hanimägi of the Social-Democratic Party, who introduced the bill, said it was not intended to restrict freedom of conscience or to ban religious practices, but to prevent the misuse of religious organisations by hostile states or groups against Estonia.
“Any links with foreign institutions or spiritual leaders that threaten Estonia’s security, support military action or violate international law must be severed,” he said.
In response to the bill, representatives of the Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate of Estonia sent an official statement to parliament expressing fears that, if adopted, its parishes might be forced to cease their activities in Estonia.
“The situation is more complex in Latvia,” Fr Sungaila told The Tablet. “Canonically, the Latvian Church remains within the Moscow Patriarchate, but the Latvian Parliament has adopted a law on autocephaly for the local Church. Thus, from the point of view of the canons of the Church, the structure there remains subordinate to Moscow, but this is not the case according to Latvia’s secular laws.”