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| RELIGION AND THE GHOSTS OF THE COMMUNIST PAST 23/01/2008 |
| (2008-01-23) |
| Last updated: 2008-01-24 17:57 EET |
Aside from being President of the Republic of Moldova (a former Soviet republic, with a majority Romanian speaking population) and the leader of the communist party, Vladimir Voronin has added another title to his resume. On Monday in Moscow, Russia’s Patriarch Aleksei the 2nd granted him an award for “consolidating the unity of Orthodox peoples”.
At first glance Voronin appears to be an emotional old Bolshevik who, in old age, discovered God and repented for the sins of the anti-Christian regime which he served his entire life. Churches were closed and transformed into warehouses or, even more cynically, into museums of atheism. Monasteries were demolished and monks condemned to forced labour, priests and parishioners deported to Siberia – all these were the outcome of the Soviet occupation of the Eastern Romanian territories annexed in 1940.
Also in 1940, the Metropolitan Church of Bessarabia was abolished, being under the spiritual authority of the Bucharest Orthodox Patriarchy, and replaced with the Metropolitan Church of Moldova, subordinated to Russia. Reactivated after the 1991 proclamation of independence, the Metropolitan Church of Bessarabia was recognised by the authorities in Chisinau only ten years later, after a ruling handed down by the European Court of Human Rights. Because it recently dared to reactivate three of the old eparchies, the Metropolitan Church is now considered by both Voronin and Aleksei the tool of some dark political circles that want to see the Republic of Moldova integrated into Romania.
Voronin received the aforementioned award after expelling, during Christmas, like a good Christian, several priests from the Metropolitan Church of Bessarabia, Romanian citizens, on trumped-up bureaucratic pretexts. The spokesman of the Romanian Patriarchy, Father Constantin Stoica, warned that the Metropolitan Church of Bessarabia would again turn to the European Court of Human Rights, if necessary:
“This issue strictly concerns the Metropolitan Church of Bessarabia, canonically subordinated to the Romanian Patriarchy. Naturally we will address the European Court of Human Rights in order for the court’s ruling and human rights in general to be respected. The right of each person to pray in the language of their forefathers should be respected.”
In turn, Father Ioan Ciontu, head of the cultural department within the Metropolitan Church, is disappointed that in Moscow the communist star and the cross were only able to see eye to eye in the name of anti-Romanian sentiments:
“Each day we are astounded by what happens regarding the presidency and government in the Republic of Moldova. Sometimes it seems that they want to do nice things for the church, they receive awards and medals in the name of the unity of faith. On the other hand, we are being bombarded here and several of our churches were raided by police. The situation remains unstable. It is obvious that this is the work of Moscow, hand in hand with the Chisinau presidency.”
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