A half century has passed since Lithuanian Catholics first asserted their right to organize seminary and Sunday school education by documenting Soviet restrictions to religious freedom in an underground publication that found international renown, the Chronicle of the Catholic Church in Lithuania. By the spring of 1989 their efforts had prevailed, and the Chronicle ceased its 17-year publication. A year later, Lithuania became the first Baltic state to declare independence from the USSR, closely followed by Latvia in May 1990, and Estonia in August 1991. Over the following three decades, Baltic Christians raised within Communist confines have been free to revive traditional Christian education as well as to innovate, even as the freedom to engage in such activity has markedly shrunk for disfavored Christians in other former Soviet states [see Mark R. Elliott, “Increasing State Restrictions on Russian Protestant Seminaries,” East-West Church Report, vol. 29, no. 2, 6-11.]

 This issue of the East-West Church Report introduces three examples of how Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox Christians in each of the three Baltic states have fully utilized the unprecedented opportunities of post-Soviet freedom. In each case, they have developed dynamic Christian educational programs at the heart of national life, even managing to expand despite the challenges of the recent pandemic.