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Estonia will now have its own Catholic diocese. Pope Francis has created the country’s first – and only – diocese in the modern era, based in the capital Tallinn, and appointed its first bishop, Frenchman Philippe Jourdan, on September 26, 2024. It’s a sign of recognition for this Church of 6,500 faithful, which is being reborn after the Soviet occupation.
Concretely, the head of the Catholic Church has given a new status to the structure that previously existed as the Apostolic Administration of Estonia, established in 1924 by Pius XI a hundred years ago. In an apostolic administration, according to canon law (which legislates the life of the Church), the local bishop governs his territory in the name of the pope. This status can only be provisional, while waiting for the local Church to become stable and autonomous.
By creating the Diocese of Tallinn, the Pope recognizes that the Catholic Church in Estonia, in full renaissance after centuries of disappearance – under the Lutheran reform and then under the Soviet regime – “is canonically reaching its culmination point,” the bishop of the new diocese, Philippe Jourdan, explains to I.MEDIA.
It is “sufficiently well rooted and integrated into society to be a normal diocese where the bishop leads in his own name.”
The new bishop
The 64-year-old bishop, originally from Dax in France and a member of Opus Dei, arrived in Estonia as vicar general of the apostolic administration in 1996. Appointed administrator in 2005, and therefore consecrated bishop, it was he who welcomed Pope Francis to Tallinn during his trip to the Baltic States in 2018.
On becoming the bishop of the Tallinn diocese, Bishop Jourdan is taking up the ancient torch of the diocese that disappeared in the 16th century in the wake of the Protestant Reformation. This decision from Rome had been long-awaited, he admits.
“After the end of the Soviet era [1991, editor’s note], we had asked three times that the Pope make us a diocese,” he explains.
“This is important for Estonians. It clearly shows that we are the local Catholic Church, which has its roots in Estonia, and not just a mission,” the bishop continues. In the 1970s there were fewer than 10 Catholics there, and there was only one priest in Estonia between 1977 and 1987. Now, there are more than 6,500, served by about 15 priests and 20 nuns.
For the new polyglot bishop – he speaks French, Estonian, Russian, English, Italian, Spanish, and German – the mission is far from over.
“The Catholic Church in Estonia is one of the youngest in Europe … it’s a land where the Catholic Church must spread,” he emphasizes.
