Sakarias Jaan Leppik

Who is Sakarias Jaan Leppik?

Sakarias Jaan Leppik is the priest of the Värska and Saatse parishes of the Orthodox Church of Estonia in South-East of Estonia, thinker, culture analyst, theatre and film critic, musician and journalist. He was born in Valga, in 1969. He studied in Tõrva Secondary School as well as in Tõrva Music School and graduated both in 1987.

During 1987-88 he studied biology at the University of Tartu. During 1991-1996 he was a student of the Institute of Theology of the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tallinn. He has also studied political science on courses of the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, taken media studies at the World Council of Churches, apologetics and history of religion courses at the University of Aarhus, Denmark and studied Greek language at the University of Ioannina, Greece.

During 1999-2003 he was a Member of the Estonian Parliament. 2003-2005 the Chief Manager of the International Theatre Festival of Tallinn City Theatre. After that he was an editor of foreign economy news in Baltic News Service.

He was the creator of the programme "12th hour" in Estonian TV in 1998. Since 1994 he has been one of the programme creators of the Estonian Public Broadcasting and lately Klassikaraadio. Since 2006 he is a priest of the Orthodox Church of Estonia and the chief editor of its cultural magazine "Faith and Life". Sakarias J. Leppik is also a professional singer of the Gregorian chant ensemble Vox Clamantis since 1996. The Film Journalist of the Year by culture newspaper Sirp. He is an alumnus of the ethnomusicology of the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre since 2011.