Church persuades lyceum principals that “Religion” must be taught to every child

The Church is trying to convince the school managers to introduce “Religion” as an optional subject in the program of study. Pavel Borshevski, archpriest of Saint Dumitru Church of Chisinau, Wednesday met with principals of municipal education institutions at the General Division of Education, Youth and Sport and told them about the importance of this subject for every child, Info-Prim Neo reports. “You are close to the children’s souls. The children must see God through the teacher. They must be told what is good and what is true so that they know what sin is and what is good and what is bad,” said Pavel Borshevski, expressing his surprise at the fact that some of the schools do not want this subject to be taught, especially because it is optional. “I don’t understand why some of the schools, mainly the Russian teaching ones, are against “Religion”. The principals say the parents do not want this subject to be taught, but I don’t think this is true,” he stated. Anastasia Valuta, deputy head of “Mihai Eminescu” Lyceum, said that most of the children in the first-fourth grades go to religion classes. Some of the parents also do it. Only the children of other denominations do not attend such lessons. The deputy manager of the Chisinau Secondary School No. 42 Cristina Gherasim said that “Religion” is not taught at their school because the parents did not ask for this. “Only 3-4 parents wrote applications. Furthermore, there are many children of other denominations,” she said, adding that she considers the children should be taught the History of Religion, not only the Orthodox Religion. “Religion” became an optional school subject in 2010.