The Holy Fire or Holy Light that starts to burn every year before Easter during a service at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem will be brought to Moldova on May 4. This year, representatives of the Metropolitan Church of Moldova and the Metropolitan Church of Bessarabia will bring separately the Holy Fire from Jerusalem, RFE/RL’s Moldovan Service reported, being quoted by IPN.
Representatives of the Metropolitan Church of Moldova went to Jerusalem to fetch the Holy Fire with a tourist agency on a five-day pilgrimage that began on April 29. The group of pilgrims includes a number of laymen and four church officials. The delegation of the Metropolitan Church of Moldova also includes a politician, the deputy chairman of the Revival Party who participated in Moscow in the founding of the political bloc “Pobeda”, together with fugitive oligarch Ilan Shor and his allies. The vicar of the Metropolitan Church of Moldova Ioan Mosnegutu told RFE/RL that he did not know that a politician was part of the delegation that went to bring the Holy Fire. The bishop claims that he does not know who paid for the trip of the priests who went on pilgrimage. “When these clerics return, you will be able to ask them if they paid for the trip,” said the vicar.
The Metropolitan Church of Bessarabia brings Holy Light to its parishioners for the third consecutive year, by private aircraft offered by a businessman from Romania, Constantin Olariu, spokesman for the Metropolitan Church of Bessarabia, told RFE/RL. In the first year, in 2022, the Metropolitan Church of Bessarabia brought the Holy Light from Iasi, but from last year the aircraft that comes with the Holy Fire from Jerusalem lands in Bucharest, then makes a stopover in Chisinau and continues its flight to Iasi. In the discussion with the quoted source on May 2, Olariu said that the entire composition of the delegation of the Romanian Patriarchate that will go to Jerusalem was not yet decided, but it is known that it will include a bishop and a counselor priest of the Romanian Patriarchate.
The delegations of the two metropolitan churches that will bring the Holy Fire to Moldova are expected to arrive at the Chisinau International Airport on May 4, at approximately the same time – 20.00. From there, the roads part. Representatives of the Metropolitan Church of Moldova will take the Holy Fire to the Nativity Metropolitan Cathedral, while the Metropolitan Bishop of Bessarabia Petru will wait at the airport for the delegation of the Romanian Patriarchate, together with two diocesan bishops. Then, he will take the Holy Fire to the Metropolitan Chapel “Saint John the Theologian” in Chisinau.
In Moldova, the Holy Fire was first brought in the early 2000s by the Metropolitan Church of Moldova and the travel was financed by politicians of the ruling party. From 2022, the Fire has been also brought by the Metropolitan Church of Bessarabia, which is subordinated to the Romanian Patriarchate.
