MINELRES: (Moldovan President) Vladimir Voronin threatens Bessarabian Metropolitan Church with annulment of its registration

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Original sender: Ionas Rus <rus@fas.rutgers.edu>


http://www.info-prim.md/?x=22&y=11804

Vladimir Voronin threatens Bessarabian Metropolitan Church with  
annulment of its registration

2007-12-01/08:21 Moldova's President Vladimir Voronin warns he will  
order the annulment of the registration of the Metropolitan Church of  
Bessarabia, contrary to the decision of the European Court of Human  
Rights (ECHR) which compelled Moldova?s Government to register it a  
few years ago, if a decision on setting up three new dioceses is not  
suspended.

The President stated during a TV show on Friday, November 30, that he  
doesn't need "a second Kosovo" in Moldova, referring to the recent  
disputes of the Romanian Patriarchate and the Moscow Patriarchate on  
reactivating on Moldova's territory 3 Romanian Dioceses: the Balti  
Diocese, the Cantemir Diocese and the Dubasari Diocese.

"If these events will further unfold, we assume ourselves the right to  
disregard the ECHR decision, because we all understand that the  
humankind has seen more wars, with 90% of them being on religious  
grounds, when a state was looking to impose its religion to another  
state", the Voronin said, specifying that he was making an official  
statement as a head of state.

"It is the same provocation scheme against us, against the  
independence, sovereignty, against the country, identity and people.  
We cannot bargain our faith and we cannot make it the prisoner of our  
politics, indifferently of the way it looks like: clever, bad, good,  
idiot", Vladimir Voronin said.

Recently, the Chisinau representatives of the Socialist Party stated  
that the decision of the Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church on  
reactivating on Moldova's territory 3 dioceses of the Metropolitan  
Church of Bessarabia would lead to a new "church war in the Moldovan  
religious space".

The Bishop of Tiraspol and Dubasari, Iustinian Ovcinnikov, has also  
accused the Romanian Orthodox Church of unleashing "a crusade against  
the Russian Orthodox Church" by reactivating the Orthodox Diocese of  
Dubasari and entire Transnistria.

The Romanian Orthodox Church states that the reactivation of the 3  
dioceses by the decision of the Autonomous Metropolitan Church of  
Bessarabia was a natural action. A recent press communique of the  
Romanian Patriarchate reads that this reactivation was the natural  
consequence of the fact that, previously, by a 2004 decision of the  
Supreme Court of Moldova and by the modifications to the status of  
organisation and functioning of the Metropolitan Church of Bessarabia,  
it was recognised as "spiritual, canonical, historical successor of  
the Metropolitan Church of Bessarabia, which operated until 1944,  
inclusively", with its component dioceses.

The Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church did but recognised legally  
these dioceses without intending to spark any conflicts between the  
Romania's Patriarchate and the Moscow Patriarchate, the communique  
also
reads.

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