Vladimir Voronin threatens Bessarabian Metropolitan Church with annulment of its registration

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 communiqué 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 communiqué also reads.