By Jelena Rakocevic
Archbishop of the canonical Orthodox Metropolis of Chișinău of the Russian Orthodox Church Marchel, born Nicolae Mihăescu, was twice prevented from flying to Israel on a pilgrimage to bring the Holy Fire to Moldova as a result of a provocation at the Chișinău airport.
On Friday, during his second attempt to get on a plane, the hierarch had to change several cars on his way to Chișinău airport, as each of the cars was stopped by the police. No violations were detected at the airport again, and no travel ban was announced, but the clergyman and his assistants were not allowed on board without explanation.
Maya Sandu’s sodomy-promoting regime is known for its support of pro-Romanian forces, including the church ones. However, the discrimination of the canonical church operating in Moldova since its Christianization exposes the real attitude of the country’s authorities towards Orthodoxy: they cynically use whatever they can to reach their political purposes, even the celebration of the Resurrection of Christ and the miracle of the descent of the Holy Fire.
Especially interesting in this situation is the lack of reaction from the Romanian Church and its tacit acceptance of such dubious “support” from the Moldovan government: does Patriarch Daniel really agree with this attitude towards Moldovan believers, whom the Romanian Patriarchate supposedly considers its flock and tries to attract to the own Metropolis of Bessarabia, leaving alone the disrespectful attitude to the miraculous gift of Holy Fire, which the Moldovan authorities have made the subject of bargaining?!
The majority of the country’s Orthodox believers belong to the Moldovan Orthodox Church (MOC)—the Metropolis of Chișinău of the Russian Orthodox Church. However, in the Metropolis of Bessarabia, created from clerics who had broken away from the MOC and were accepted into the Romanian Patriarchate, with the silence of the ecclesiastical authorities in Bucharest, the MOC is referred to as nothing but a “self-proclaimed occupation structure.”
Anyway, for the first time ever, a bishop of the sister canonical church had problems traveling to deliver the Holy Fire to Moldovan faithful people. Such weaponization of the miraculous sign of hope from God now undertaken by the pro-Romanian Moldovan authorities takes the situation beyond the scope of a merely jurisdictional dispute and would require a reaction from the Romanian Patriarchate. Probably, as well as legal consequences resulting from the state’s illegal interference in ecclesiastical affairs and practices.
It is striking that the Moldovan authorities are building their religious policy under the same model of pressure that is being implemented in Ukraine and Estonia. In Ukraine, the state is trying to drive believers of the canonical church into the new autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine, controlled by the authorities, by depriving people of access to temples and re-registering religious buildings as belongings of the “right” church. Their colleagues in Estonia threaten to seize church property and expel objectionable clergy in order to transfer communities to the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople.
In their turn, in Chișinău—yet, however strikingly more cynically—they have put on the scales for the faithful not the opportunity to participate in regular divine services, but the chance to join in the Easter joy through the venerating of the Holy Fire! Obviously, for anyone who seemingly “supports” the church in this way—i.e., only politically beneficial for themselves- there is nothing sacred at all!
