Vilnius Stepping Up Pressure on Russian Orthodox Church There, Moscow Commentator Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 10 – Relations between the Lithuanian government and the Russian Orthodox Church in Lithuania have been far less fraught than those between the Estonian and Latvian governments and Orthodox hierarchies in those two Baltic countries, at least in part because the share of Lithuanians who are Orthodox is so small, less than five percent.

            But since the start of Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine, relations between the state and the Orthodox Church in Lithuania have deteriorated, at least in part because the church remains canonically linked to the Moscow Patriarchate and its leaders usually but not always follow that patriarchate’s line.

            (That has led some Orthodox priests there to appeal to the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople to form an alternative Orthodox see in Lithuania and take them under its protection. On that, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/04/vilnius-expects-constantinople-to.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/02/lithuania-may-soon-have-two-orthodox.html.)

            Now, the situation in Lithuania may becoming more tense. Earlier this year, the Lithuanian government’s Department of State Security issued a report identifying the Orthodox church in that country to be “a national security threat,” a statement that was somewhat softened by other officials but has provoked a sharp response by the Orthodox Church there.

            On March 17, the Diocese of Vilnius and Lithuania declared that statements like those of Lithuanian officials “foster a negative attitude toward Lithuania’s second-largest traditional religious community” and ignores that the church’s links with Moscow “do not “hinder use from remaining law-abiding citizens and patriots of Lithuania.”

            In reporting this development, Moscow commentator Vsevolod Shimov says that this exchange suggests that tensions between the state and the Orthodox Church in Lithuania are nonetheless likely to deteriorate (fondsk.ru/news/2026/04/10/litovskie-vlasti-obvinyayut-pravoslavnuyu-cerkov-v-ugrozakh-nacionalnoy).