Jaan Kiivit Senior (27 February 1906 – 3 August 1971) was an Estonian prelate who was the

Archbishop In Christian denominations, an archbishop is a bishop of higher rank or office. In most cases, such as the Catholic Church, there are many archbishops who either have jurisdiction over an ecclesiastical province in addition to their own archdi ...

of Tallinn and the first primate of the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church from 1949 and 1967, after the break away from the exiled Estonian Evangelium's Lutheran Church.

Biography

Kiivit was born in

Tuhalaane Tuhalaane is a village in Mulgi Parish in Viljandi County in southern Estonia. (retrieved 28 July 2021) It borders the villages Hirmuküla, Morna, Muri and Suuga as well as Viljandi Parish. Notable people *Ants Piip (1884–1942), politician ...

, Viljandi County on 27 February 1906 in the Governorate of Livonia. His father Jaan Kiivit and his mother Leena Allik were millers. From autumn 1925 to December 1932 he studied at the Faculty of Theology of the University of Tartu. He was ordained priest on 16 July 1933 by Archbishop

Jakob Kukk Jakob Kukk (9 September 1870 - 25 July 1933) was an Estonian prelate who served as the first bishop of the independent Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church. Biography Kukk was born on 9 September 1870 in Ilmatsalu, Governorate of Livonia, in ...

. In April 1933 he became a vicar in Jõhvi and in July 1933 he became a pastor in

Emmaste Emmaste (german: Emmast) is a village in Hiiumaa Parish, Hiiu County in northwestern Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Fin ...

, on the island of Hiiumaa. In 1940 he was elected Dean of the Viru deanery and became acting dean. On 15 January 1941 he became was confirmed as Dean, a title which he could not have before due to his young age. On 6 June 1948, he became pastor of

St. John's Church, Tallinn St. John's Church ( et, Jaani kirik) is a large Lutheran parish church in Tallinn, Estonia. It is dedicated to John the Evangelist, Saint John the Evangelist, a disciple of Jesus Christ and author of the fourth Christian Gospel. Construction began ...

and Dean of Tallinn. In that period he also acted as a substitute for the Archbishop, who had moved into exile in Sweden in 1944.

Archbishop

On 2 February 1949, he was appointed Bishop of Tallinn and Primate of the Estonian Church. On 20 April 1949 he was elected and confirmed by the Constituent Assembly as Deputy Bishop. On 23 October 1949, the Church Council of the EELC chose Kiivit as the first Archbishop of EELC, a post to hold for life. As archbishop, he was closely involved with ecumenism. In 1958 he participated in the first meetings of the

Christian Peace Conference The Christian Peace Conference ( cs, Křesťanská mírová konference) was an international organization based in Prague and founded in 1958 by Josef Hromádka, a pastor who had spent the war years in the United States, moving back to Czechoslova ...

in Prague. He was later elected to the board of the CVC. In 1959 he participated in the festivities of the 550th anniversary of the University of Leipzig (renamed Karl-Marx University during the communist rule) in the German Democratic Republic and obtained an honorary doctorate. On 31 August 1967 Kiivit resigned from the post of archbishop due to poor health, but also because of increasing distance from the state authorities. He died on 3 August 1971. His son

Jaan Kiivit Jr. Jaan Kiivit Jr. (19 February 1940 – 31 August 2005) was the Archbishop of the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church from 1994 until 2005. Biography Jaan Kiivit was born on 19 February 1940 in Rakvere in Estonia in the family of the priest an ...

succeeded as Archbishop some years later.

Agent for the KGB

KGB archives opened after the collapse of the Soviet Union showed that Kiivit an NKVD/ KGB agent who was first recruited in 1948. His code name was Jüri I.Puidet, R
"17 kevadist hetke. Peapiiskop Jaan Kiivit sen 1906–1971"
'' Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church''. Retrieved on 25 May 2019.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kiivit Sr., Jaan 1906 births 1971 deaths Lutheran archbishops of Tallinn University of Tartu alumni People from Mulgi Parish 20th-century Lutheran archbishops Burials at Rahumäe Cemetery