The first Estonian Church Congress took place in the Treffner Gymnasium hall on 31 May 1917. It was opened by the oldest pastor, Villem Eisenschmidt. The pastor of the Tartu St.Peter's congregation opened the congress in front of over 300 representatives of congregations. The grey-haired old man had chosen the following words of Jesus on which to base his speech: "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8,31-32). The Christian aspirations for freedom, this date and congress can be considered the birth of Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church as a free people's church in Estonia, which would soon be independent.
The representatives of congregations were brought together to Tartu by their common desire to hold and keep their homes, to free themselves from alien power. In times of great changes and in the midst of disintegrating Russia, the Estonians expressed their ardent wish and determination to build their own homes, to organise and develop their church life, as they themselves thought right.
Although it took years to work out and establish an essentially different form of self-government and free people's church, it was done with the firm purpose of improving the life of society and people. It was done with the aim of serving people through proclaiming the Gospel, administering of the sacrament, and love. Church as the union of faith and love saw its task in Christian education, in order to rise a new generation who would be sound in faith and morals and feel responsibility in front of God and the fellow men. No notion can survive and develop without a strong religious and moral backbone.
The people's church means that it embodies the majority of population and that the foundation of its organisation are congregations and their members who send elected representatives to the governing bodies of congregations and the church. It also means being open to the outside and internally united and unanimous in beliefs and attitudes and in the variety of the types of devoutness. To see oneself as people's church is to recognise and appreciate one's heritage and to fulfil the task of mission in conditions and among people where God has chosen us to live and work as a church, congregation and a Christian. This task requires the purposeful and responsible co-operation between all the members of congregations, councils and boards. For that, God has called every one of us.
In order to understand the everyday life and activities of the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church, it is perhaps necessary to know a few facts about its distant and recent past.
Although the first contacts of Estonians with Christianity are more than one thousand years old, the organised church activity began only in the 13th century when there were three episcopates on Estonian territory with their cathedrals and cathedral chapters (Tallinn 1229, Tartu 1224, Haapsalu 1263). By the end of the 15th century, Estonia had 94 church parishes with a network of churches and chapels, and 15 monasteries.
The Lutheran Reformation established itself in Estonia in 1524, bringing along sermons in the Estonian language. As a result of the movement and the work of the Moravian brothers, it was possible to admit, in the 19th century, that the formal church establishment had become a considerable source of power and its spiritual way of life the basis of Christian life.
The church in Estonia that had so far functioned according to the laws of Swedish and Russian church, became after the First Church Congress in 1917 (31 May and 1 June) the Free People's Church. For the first time it united the 127 Lutheran congregations and their approximately 920 000 members.
The Second World War and the ensuing 45 years of Soviet occupation with its atheist propaganda and hostile attitude towards church ruined the authority of the church, alienated it from the majority of people and denied the nation the possibility to learn Christian values.
