Theology Professor Constantin Necula, known for his active involvement in the spiritual and academic life in Romania, recently visited the Republic of Moldova, where he had discussions with representatives of the Metropolitan Church of Bessarabia. In an interview with IPN, Constantin Necula spoke about the Metropolitan Church of Bessarabia’s affiliation to the traditional canonical space, about how this struggle for faith is perceived in Bucharest and about the challenges faced by Orthodoxy in the current European context.
Priest Constantin Necula, during your visits to the Republic of Moldova you also held discussions with representatives of the Metropolitan Church of Bessarabia, which has been fighting for decades for its return to the traditional canonical space. How do you see this fight for faith in Bucharest?
In Romania, this struggle is seen as anchoring in the truth of Heaven and history. For years, Sibiu, where I work as a professor of theology, has supported a number of Bessarabian students to study well, to show their love for books and theological culture, to get out of the scheme of intellectual reductionism and to grow in the endurance of proclaiming the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. I do not forget that a Metropolitan Bishop born in Bessarabia, Hierarch Antonie Plămădeală of Sibiu, ordained me. And my view on the history of Bessarabia was shaped by another Bessarabian, Metropolitan Bishop Nestor Vornicescu, Metropolitan Bishop of Oltenia. They loved their Country Paradise very much. And they loved Romania. In fact, they loved one indivisible Romania. From them I learned to look into the eyes of the dramas of the history of Bessarabia. They first told me about the deportations and the unfortunate wounds of the break in the life of the Bessarabians. After a discussion with Priest Mircea Păcurariu, another connoisseur of the dramas of Bessarabia, I reread the reports of the Romanian missionary priests of Bessarabia, of 1942 to 1944, who had left Sibiu to support the mission of Orthodoxy. So, it is hard to believe in the excesses of some storytellers. I am impressed by the cleanliness of the people of faith and the common sense of the believer who seeks Christ the Lord in the silence of places of worship, which regain the light of Romanian spring. Of the places visited in Bessarabia, most were communities that build new places of worship, symbolically marking a new beginning, which connects them to the Church of their nation.
The Republic of Moldova is currently in the process of joining the European Union, and disinformation includes such narratives as the fact that, if we enter the EU, the Orthodox faith will be banned, children could no longer be baptized, etc. How does the Romanian Orthodox Church, the Orthodox faith in the European Union, feel?
As a student and then as a young priest, I experienced the bitterness of such arguments. Many turned out to be not only false, but even pathologically manipulative. I was healed by visiting thousands of parishes abroad, in the blasphemous West, where Romanian Orthodox people, including Bessarabians, found liturgical accommodation in places of historical confessions considered, for years, unfriendly to Orthodoxy. There I saw that religious freedom is not a fad if you learn to practice it rigorously and clearly in Christ the Lord. I consider it aberrant to argue with all sorts of aberrations of a narrative devoid of truth, as long as our Orthodox Christians often say that, at home, they had lost the practice of living in faith, but there they find it and feel better in the Church than in an embassy, the churches being the honorary consulates of national and religious interests. As for the prohibition of faith in Romania, I ask those who believe the detractors to count the places of worship built after 1990 in the country, to look at the thriving of confessional schools, the activity in religion classes, the academic activity of theology schools and the editing/publication of books, to switch the information channel from time to time to Radio Trinitas or to Trinitas TV channel of the Romanian Patriarchate, to cross the border on a pilgrimage to Saint Parascheva or to the Tomb of Father Arsenie Boca and, especially, to visit the memorials in Pitești, Jilava, Aiud, Gherla, Sighet. As a Transylvanian priest, I must confess another truth, which is also valid for Bukovina and its profile in faith. In Transylvania, the faith flourished, Orthodoxy gave birth to saints under the Imperial eagle with the strength that the Holy Spirit gives to people who are not afraid and who have learned that, in order to keep up with Europe, one integrates into its culture, into its economic and social development. To this day, the right choice of this attitude to the detriment of anti-European defeatism is felt and lived here, beyond the Carpathians, in the civilization of the street, in culture and spirituality alike. Only those who do not know history, assume fairytales more easily than the archive of a nation.
Disinformation and the anti-EU attitude are intensely promoted, using the pretext of the danger of disappearance of the Orthodox Christian faith if Bessarabia becomes a member of the European Union. Is there a danger of banning dogmas, traditions, Orthodox faith if the Republic of Moldova becomes a member of the EU?
I repeat what I answered above. Look at Romania, which certainly struggles with some currents of political correctness and sometimes feels its security of confession endangered, but it is mandatory to take all this as an anti-virus to our own non-work. I can personally testify that the hundreds of conferences, television shows and acts of involvement in social assistance or community support activities could only be carried out in a free state, where democracy strengthens the right to free faith. Of course, there are dangers of faith distortion. But we, the Christians, contribute to many of them not because we are integrated into Europe, but because we use the Gospel only in the word, not in the Spirit. Long before European accession, Christianity suffered. It should not be forgotten that if we speak of the dignity of Christianity, we also speak of the undignity of Christians, which is particularly dangerous to Orthodoxy.
Soon, a referendum will be held in the Republic of Moldova to establish European integration as an external orientation in the Constitution. As a priest, teacher and spiritual father, what do you advise Orthodox Christians to do, especially young people? Is it worth it for the Orthodox Christians to participate in this electoral exercise and support the referendum?
Personally, I know what blood price was paid in Romania and on the territory of Bessarabia in order to have such rights of democratic expression. For the right to cast our vote in a democratic exercise box, some placed their ashes in the urn of the history of anti-ideology and anti-dictatorship resistance. As a citizen of your country, you have the obligation not to let it be burdened in such moments by the absences from it. As a Romanian, I feel that one of the most comprehensive rights gained after 1989 is that of being free to accept or not a person, a doctrine or a political act. And to express myself. Greater than this right is that of freedom of movement within the limits of a family that, even when it does not love me, accepts my identity and allows me to value it, sometimes even in its living room of interests. The youth cannot betray the future of the country. And here it goes not about politics, but about choosing what the heart proposes to reason to be the father and mother of your children, who will grow up in the conditions created by you as well.
Priest Constantin Necula, you recently visited the Republic of Moldova, where you successfully held a number of conferences. How was your experience?
I visited the Republic of Moldova for several times to quench my thirst to be a brother to real people. My conferences were my attempt to tell the people here that I care, that they are not alone and that their power to rebuild national identity is a model of my spiritual courage. I held lectures alone or accompanying Mihai Moraru or, more recently, Secretary of State Adrian Dupu. But in the first years I was hosted by Father Viorel Cojocaru and I even published a book, at “Cu drag” Publishing House in Chisinau, Sundays in Gift, a book that I care about very much. In recent years, however, at the invitation and with the blessing of Bishop Veniamin, Bishop of Southern Bessarabia, I was present more often in villages and communes, in cities and pastoral communities that conquered my heart and mind. Today’s Bessarabia has won my admiration. It is a Trajan's Wave against the alienation of the Nation’s hearth, a remarkable country of my rediscovery as a man. I walked through the stardust of the history of the Romanian nation and each time I learned. Bessarabia is a wonderful school of humanity and grace.
In conclusion, I would like to ask you to address a few words to the Orthodox Christians in Bessarabia and especially to the young people who are a little more apathetic.
I can only remind them of the words of Scripture in the meeting on the morning of the Resurrection. The angel asks the myrrh-bearing women: “Why do you seek the Living One among the dead? He is not here. He is risen!”. Make the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ the lesson through which you understand the defeat of death and the victory over hell. Do not be afraid to assume your life and that of your country. As long as God is with us, no one can ever stand against us!
Priest Constantin Necula is a doctor of theology, catechetical-homiletic and Christian pedagogy specialization. He studied in Padua (Italy) and Versailles (France), completed specialization courses in general psychology, in problems related to child abuse, alcohol and drug addiction and communication with the families of those with various addictions. He is a university professor and vice-dean of the Faculty of Theology in Sibiu. He is the author of volumes of sermons, studies and articles on homiletics and catechesis, but also of books for children and young people. He translated a series of works, wrote articles in national and foreign publications. He signed dozens of studies and reviews. He held hundreds of conferences in Romania and abroad and participated in numerous radio, television and online shows.
