Statement concerning the arguments of the representatives of the Romanian Orthodox Church justifying the decision to establish dioceses of the Metropolia of Bessarabia

On 21 February 2008, the official website of the Romanian Patriarchate published a communiquй with ‘explanations of the juridical recognition of the Metropolia of Bessarabia and its dioceses.’ In December 2007, the same site published a press-release of the Department for Foreign Church Relations of the Romanian Orthodox Church expounding the arguments vindicating the decision of the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church to establish new dioceses within the so called Metropolia of Bessarabia. The same views were presented to the representatives of the Moscow Patriarchate by the Romanian delegation at the talks in Bulgaria on 22 November 2007.

Following the public announcement made by the Romanian Orthodox Church of the arguments in substantiation its recent decision, the Communication Service of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations is authorized to present the following explanations.

An examination of the arguments in the said documents shows a number of discrepancies with the generally accepted Orthodox tradition. For instance, it says that as ‘Canon 2 of the Second Ecumenical Council, Canon 8 of the Third Ecumenical Council, and Canons 13 and 22 of the Local Council of Antioch regulate concrete situations emerging within the Church’, they do not have a universal character and therefore are inapplicable to the ecclesiastical situation in Moldova. However, history testifies that the holy Church adopted all canonical rules for concrete reasons, be it a new heresy or various problems in interchurch relations. Nevertheless, during centuries these rules have always been the standard for the settlement of church disputes.

It is further maintained that ‘even in the 1^st century the church practice and canonical doctrine sanctified the order according to which every Church should have bishops from among its own people obliged to organize the life of the Church (the 34^th Apostolic Canon).’

Yet, it is commonly known that the Plenitude of Orthodoxy has never approved the principle of organizing the Churches on ethnic grounds, since this does not agree with the very spirit of Christianity, as ‘there cannot be Greek or Jew’ (Col 3:11). The 34^th Apostolic Canon cannot be understood in the sense that every nation should have bishops of the same ethnic origin. This canon regulates the life of every Church, coordinating the acts of its bishops and those of their one Primate (cf. interpretations of Zonaras, Balsamon and Aristinus). This becomes evident when the 34^th Canon is compared with other canons, including Canon 9 of the Council of Antioch. ‘It behooves the bishops in every province to acknowledge the bishop who presides in the metropolis […] according to the ancient canon which prevailed from [the times] of our fathers.’ In 1872 a doctrine of ethnophyletism, which justifies the sacrifice the interests of the Church for the national-political interests was condemned by the Local Council of Constantinople in which the Patriarchs of the Eastern Churches also took part.

The desire to apply an ethnic interpretation of the 34^th Apostolic Canon to the ecclesiastical situation in Moldova with reference to the Orthodox believers in this state who ‘are Romanians in their majority and, in compliance with the above-mentioned canon should have the clergy and hierarchs from among their nationals in communion with the Mother Church, that is, the Romanian Orthodox Church’ is even more inappropriate because according to the general censure taken in 2004, the Romanians comprise only 2,2% of the population of the Republic of Moldova. The Moldavians, Russians, Ukrainians, Gagauzians and Bulgarians who are also Orthodox comprise together over 90% of the population of the Republic.

Perplexing is the assertion that ‘from a juridical point of view, these dioceses of the Autonomous Metropolia of Bessarabia were reactivated on the canonical territory of the Autonomous Metropolia of Bessarabia [….] without denying the right to existence to the Russian’ Metropolia of Kishinev and All Moldova.’[…] The coexistence of the two Orthodox Metropolias in the Republic of Moldova today is due to the fact that this territory is no longer part either of the Romanian State or of the Russian State, but it is a new independent State.’ The Orthodox Church has traditionally regulated such problems in accordance with Canon 2 of the Second Ecumenical Council, Canon 22 of the Council of Antioch, Canon 16 of the Council of Constantinople of 861, Canon 3 of the Council of Sardica and other canons of the councils that prohibit ‘the overlapping of the Churches’ and installations of two bishops ‘in one city,’ that is, on one and the same territory.

The reference to the ‘present context, in which the Orthodox Christians throughout the world live (for instance, three Orthodox Metropolitans in a large city of Thessalonica, or several Orthodox jurisdictions in a country which is not a canonical territory of just one Autocephalous Church’) is groundless in this case, as the mentioned Metropolias in Thessalonica provide pastoral care for the believers on the different, though contiguous territories. Besides, these dioceses are in the bosom of the one Church of Greece, which is perfectly entitled to set up the boundaries of the dioceses on its canonical territory at its own discretion.

The Romanian side allows the co-existence of the parallel ecclesiastical structures in Moldova ‘in spite of their canonical jurisdiction embracing one and the same territory’ on the grounds that these structures allegedly ‘care for different Orthodox flocks.’ Yet it is evident that in the situation with the Republic of Moldova we are dealing with the single flock whose absolute majority consists of believers of Moldavian nationality.

As the population of the Republic of Moldova has been Orthodox from time immemorial and traditionally united in one Orthodox Church, the principles temporarily regulating the relations among the Orthodox Churches in diaspora are inapplicable to them. Orthodoxy in the Republic of Moldova is rooted as strongly as in Romania or Russia and also has a long history and original traditions like Orthodoxy in the neighbouring countries.

Serious questions arose regarding the following assumption: ‘for pastoral-missionary reasons, the two Autocephalous sister churcvhes can, by mutual agreement, allow exception from the provisions of Canon 22 of the Council of Antioch’ which prohibits to install two bishop to one see.

First of all it is unclear what kind of pastoral-missionary reasons can provoke a desire to divide the Orthodox flock in one and the same country, be it on ethnic or political ground. Such an action, which divides the body of the Church, can only make Orthodox witness and pastoral work more difficult.

Secondly, what kind of mutual agreement between the two Churches can we talk about, when the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church took the decision to set up the new church structures unilaterally without seeking to discuss it with the Russian Orthodox Church in good time and even without giving advance notice? As to the recent actions in this regard, one of them is an inclusion of the so-called ‘Metropolia of Bessarabia in the rank of exarchate’ among the dioceses of the Romanian Orthodox Church in its new Statutes.

It is evident that the present situation in which some clergymen of the Orthodox Church of Moldova are received without proper canonical release from their church authorities into communion with the representatives of the Romanian Patriarchate, makes both the received and those who receive them fully responsible for violation of the canonical standards instituted in Canon 17 of the Sixth Ecumenical Council, Canon 54 of the Council of Carthage, and Canon 15 of the Council of Sardica.

As to the ‘autonomous or autocephalous status acquired by certain Churches after their states had become independent’ known in history, it must be noted that in 1992 the Russian Orthodox Church granted the Orthodox Church of Moldavia all necessary rights of its internal self-governance. As to the hypothetical question of a possible reconsideration of the canonical status of the Church in the Republic of Moldova, it is a sole prerogative of the plenitude of the Russian Orthodox Church to do so with the opinion of the hierarchs, clergymen and laymen of the Orthodox Church of Moldova taken into account.

The assertion that the majority of the citizens of the Republic of Moldova ‘for political reasons cannot freely express their spiritual, cultural and ethnic identity’ is motivated by private political opinions of its authors only and has nothing in common with canon law.

The arguments of historical nature put forward in the said documents are no less controversial.

For instance, they say that the territory of the modern Republic of Moldova ‘inhabited by the forerunners of the Romanians, ever since the 3^rd and the 4^th centuries A.D., depended, from a canonical-spiritual point of view, on the Patriarchate of Constantinople.’

It is known that the seeds of Christianity were brought in the lower reaches of the Danube River by Roman colonists in the 1^st-3^rd centuries. Tertullian testifies to it in his treatise Adversus Iudaeos by mentioning ‘the Daci converted to Christianity.’ Testifying to the same are the tombs of Christian martyrs found in the region who suffered martyrdom during the reign of the Emperors Trajan (98-117) and Diocletian (284-305).

The province of Dacia, which covered the territory between the Prut and Nistru Rivers near the Black Sea (located on the territory of the modern Republic of Moldova only partly) was included in the region of Illyrica. Therefore, its bishops till the 5^th century had been in the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Sirmium who, in his turn, had been under the jurisdiction of Rome. After the Huns ruined Sirmium, the church province of Dacia was placed under the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Thessalonica, who was in the jurisdiction of now Rome, now Constantinople. In the 6^th century Emperor Justinian I set up in his native city – the first Justiniana – the centre of church administration, and Dacia together with several other provinces was placed under this centre.

It was only in the 8^th century that Emperor Leo the Syrian placed the Church of Dacia under complete jurisdiction of Constantinople. Incidentally, the territory between the Prut and Nistru Rivers near the Black Sea ceased to be an administrative part of Dacia in the 4^th century.

The official view of the Romanian Church on this matter was formulated in its synodal act of 1882, ‘The Romanians received the Christian teaching and baptism as well as its first bishops not from Constantinople. The baptism of Romania antedates Constantinople itself. The Romanian principalities at first had their independent Church, and the Patriarchate of Constantinople made its first attempt to place the Romanian principalities under its jurisdiction only in the late 14^th century.’

As to the rest of the territory between the Prut and Nistru Rivers inhabited at the beginning of the Christian era by Getae-Daci and the descendants of the Scythians, it had never been a part of any province of the Roman Empire, and the influence of Rome on it was minimal. However, one can surmise that the first news about Christ reached this area from Dacia in the 1^st-3^rd centuries.

In the period from the 4^th to the 10^th century, the pagan tribes of the Slaves, Germanic people, Hums and Avars took a major part in the formation of ethnogeny on the territory between the Prut and Nistru Rivers. As a result, the earlier traces of Christianity in the region were almost obliterated.

In the 12^th-13^th centuries the territory from the Nistru to the Danube and Seret Rivers was controlled by the principality of Galicia, which was a part of Russia. In that period the jurisdiction of the Russian Church, which was a part of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, extended to this territory in a natural way.

The territory between the Prut and Nistru Rivers became a part of the Principality of Moldova in the 14^th century. The Moldavians had the Church of their own by that time. Metropolitan Anthony of Galicia consecrated the first bishops of the Church of Moldavia, Joseph and Meletius, in 1371 and 1376 respectfully (or later, according to other sources) at the request of hospodar Laюko. In 1387, the successor of Laюko, hospodar Petr I Muєat appointed Bishop Joseph the head of the Moldavian Church with the blessing of Metropolitan Anthony.

In 1401 the Patriarchate of Constantinople recognized Joseph as Metropolitan of Moldova, and the Metropolia of Moldova voluntarily joined the jurisdiction of the See of Constantinople with the rights of autonomy. For many years the Moldavian hierarchs were elected by their own clergy and were approved by the hospodar. A renowned state leader of Moldova Dimitry Kantemir, who was the hospodar of the Moldavian principality in 1693 and in 1710-11, eloquently testified to the status of the Moldavian Church, ‘Metropolitan of Moldavia enjoys a particular honour in the Eastern Church in comparison with others. Though he has no title of Patriarch, and is called Metropolitan of Moldova and Suceava, he is not subject to any Patriarch. Though he receives the blessing of the Patriarch of Constantinople, he cannot be elected by the latter and is not obliged to wait for the approval of the Great Church… He is completely exempt from the tribute which all Metropolitans pay to the Patriarch; no law obliges him to ask what to do in the Moldavian Church and how to do it; he enjoys the same great authority in his Metropolia as the Patriarch in his domain.’ Later, Metropolitan Gabriel (Banulesku-Bodoni), Bishop Neophit (Skriban) and well-known historians wrote about actual independence of the Moldavian Church of the Patriarchate of Constantinople.

While trying to prove that the territory of Moldavia ‘has never been rightly a canonical territory of the Russian Orthodox Church,’ the authors of the documents published by the Romanian side say that ‘when the Russian Orthodox Church elected its own metropolitan in 1448, […] considering itself as autocephalous, it had no canonical jurisdiction over the territory between the Prut and Nistru Rivers.’ However, this argument does not prove any privilege of the Romanian Orthodox Church which was organized much later. It is known that the act of the Council of Constantinople of 1593, which confirmed the status of the Moscow Patriarchate, did not strictly defined its boundaries, and describes its jurisdiction as embracing ‘Moscow, Russia and all Northern countries.’ This formulation can not be viewed as preliminary excluding the territory of the modern Republic of Moldova which is located much further to the north of Constantinople. On the contrary, in the Tomos of Autocephaly sent in 1885 by His Holiness Patriarch Joachim IV of Constantinople to the Romanian Orthodox Church, it is definitely called ‘the Orthodox Church of the Romanian Kingdom,’ and, as is known, the territory between the Prut and Nistru Rivers had not been included within its boundaries neither at that time nor earlier.

The Romanian representatives state that the Russian Orthodox Church set up the Diocese of Kishinev in 1813 allegedly ‘in order to Russify the Romanian population in the Eastern part of Moldova.’ Yet the Moldavian historians underscore that it was from the time when the Diocese of Kishinev was set up that the revival of the national cultural life in Moldavia began after a long crisis in the period of dependence on Turkey. The Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian State took a substantial part in organizing a system of religious and secular education in Moldavia. Primary schools, district and high schools were opened in all chief district towns. Some four hundred schools of all types were opened in Bessarabia by 1858 with over 12, 000 students.

The first head of the Diocese of Kishinev of the Russian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Gabriel (Banulesku-Bodoni) opened a Theological seminary in Kishinev in 1813, the only educational institution in the region. A boarding school, which provided secular education, was opened 1816 at the Metropolitan’s petition. Through the care of Metropolitan Gabriel a Bessarabian printing house was opened in 1814.

Archbishop of Kishinev Dimitry (Sulima, 1821-1844) was famous for his zealous work on translating liturgical books and textbooks into the Moldavian language. He opened many free schools in Moldavian towns. The Cathedral of the Nativity of Christ was built in Kishinev in 1836. It is the spiritual centre of the Moldavian capital city even now.

Archbishops of Kishinev Irinarch (Popov) and Anthony (Shokotov) who led the diocese in 1844-71 made great efforts and put their own money to the development of education in Moldavia. Through their care the liturgical books in the Moldavian language were published, new parish schools and a diocesan college for girls were opened.

Later, the hierarchs of Kishinev were also engaged in the zealous educational activity and cared for the development of Orthodoxy in Moldavia. In the early 1918 the Moldavian Diocese had 1084 parishes, 27 monasteries and convents, 7 scetes, and three theological seminaries. The Church published a ‘Luminгtorul’ magazine in the Moldavian language and ‘The Kishinev Diocesan Gazette’ in Russian and Moldavian. The divine services were traditionally celebrated in the Moldavian and Church Slavonic languages.

Unfortunately, the late 19^th century saw some incidents showing the lack of respect for the local language and culture, yet these phenomena were completely eliminated towards the 20^th century. Today, divine services are celebrated in the Moldavian language in almost all churches of the Orthodox Church of Moldova.

The development of the culture and spirituality of Moldova and Russia within one single state in 1812-1918 continued good traditions that used to unite their people by living bonds in earlier times. Common church traditions of the Moldavians and Slavs began to shape in the period when the Danube principalities were under the omophorion of the Bulgarian Church. At that time the Moldavians and the Wallachians who had no written language adopted the alphabet invented by the holy brothers Cyril and Methodius Equal-to-the-Apostles and the Slavonic language as church language. The Slavonic language remained the language of the books in Moldavia till the 16^th century. The interaction of the two cultures was not stopped even when the Moldavian language in divine services replaced the Church Slavonic.

Icons and church vessels were brought to Moldavia from Moscow. The Moldavian hospodars invited Russian icon-painters to paint the churches. A school, at which the Moldavian and Russian monks taught, was opened at the Cathedral of the Three Hierarchs in Jassy in 1640.

The book printing was of great importance for the development of the national culture in Moldavia. In the 1640s, at the request of Archimandrite Barlaam (later Metropolitan of Moldavia) the equipment for a printing-house was brought to Jassy from Kiev, Lvov and Moscow, and the printers came. Published in this printing-house were ‘Kazania’, a book of sermons and exhortations of Metropolitan Barlaam (1643); The Seven Mysteries of the Church’ translated by Eustratius the Logothete (1645) and ‘The Rules’ by hospodar Vasily Lupu (1646) – the first printed codex in Moldavia. In 1679, at the petition of Metropolitan Dositheus of Moldavia, Patriarch of Moscow Joachim helped to organize the second printing-house in Jassy.

In one of his verse dedications Metropolitan Dositheus wrote about the role of Russia in the development of education in Moldavia, ‘The light is shining from Moscow spreading long rays and fine glory on the earth.’

Many church books in the Moldavian language were published later in St Petersburg also. Textbooks on history, geography and arithmetic were translated from the Russian and other European languages into Moldavian in the 1770s. The relations with Russia helped the Moldavian national culture to join the European process.

The authors of accusation in ‘unjust annexation’ of Moldova in 1812 seem to forget that Russia has brought the people of Moldova deliverance from the oppression of the infidels that lasted for three centuries with persecution of national culture, violence and robbery on the part of the Turkish powers. The fact is hushed up that ‘annexations’ during centuries were preceded by numerous appeals of the Moldavian hospodars, metropolitans and boyars to receive their country within Russia.

Several official documents of hospodar Stephen III of 15^th century are extant in which he asked Tsar Ivan III for help. The treaty of alliance between Moldavia and Russia was concluded in 1529 by which the boundaries of Moldavia were for a time being saved from foreign raids. Russia has always rendered financial, diplomatic and military aid to Moldavia in the difficult period of the Turkish dominion.

It was for the first time in 1654 that the Moldavian hospodar George Stephen asked Tsar Alexis Mikhailovich to accept Moldavia in Russia. The great embassy headed by Metropolitan Gedeon and Logothete Grigory Neanul arrived from Jassy in Moscow in 1656. On 7 June 1656, Metropolitan Gedeon took an oath of loyalty to His Holiness Patriarch Nikon of Moscow and All Russia on behalf of the Moldavian clergy, hospodar and inhabitants of the principality. Yet the agreement was not implemented due to the complicated international situation.

In the 17^th – early 18^th centuries the hospodars of Moldavia tried many times to unite their country with Russia. Remarkable are the words of Metropolitan Dositheus of Suceava in his message of 1684 to Tsars Ivan and Peter written on behalf of the hospodar, higher clergy, boyars and all inhabitants of Moldavia, ‘Be merciful and deliver us from our enemies by sending troops against the Hagarites. Make haste, or we will perish. We have no hope for liberation by any country but by your holy Tsardom.’

In 1711, during the Prut march undertaken in alliance with the Moldavian and Wallachian hospodars, the army of Peter I approached Jassy. The boyars, honorary townsmen and all clergymen ‘headed by Metropolitan Gedeon left the city for a ceremonial meeting of the Emperor. They bowed before Peter, praising and thanking God for their deliverance from the Turkish yoke,’ a chronicler of the events I. Neculca wrote. Thousands of the inhabitants of Moldova joined the Russian army responding to the appeal of their hospodar. The Prut march failed, but it commenced the common armed struggle of Russia and Moldavia against the Ottoman Empire.

During the Austro-Turkish War of 1716-18 Dimitry Kantemir, the higher clergy and representatives of the Sturdza family asked the Russian Emperor to liberate Moldavia from the Ottoman dominion.

During the Russo-Turkish War of 1735-39 the Wallachian boyars sent their envoys to Russia with a request to get on the march to the Nistru and Danube Rivers, promising all possible support. They also interceded for the Moldavians, as due to the geographical location of Wallachia, Russia could not protect it without liberating Moldavia from the Ottoman dominion.

The documents of that time testify that when Moldavia became a theatre of war operations in 1739 ‘no single day passed without the Wallachian and Moldavian officers and soldiers coming to the headquarters and announcing their wish to join the Russian army.’

After the outbreak of the Russo-Turkish War of 1768-74, a representative delegation headed by Bishop Innocent of Huє and Metropolitan Gregory of Hungary and Wallachia arrived in St Petersburg from Moldavia and Wallachia and again informed Empress Catherine II of the wish of the whole people of Moldavia to join the family of nations who inhabited the Russian Empire.

The State Council discussed the destiny of the Danubian principalities at its session on 16 September 1770. Russia was prepared to resign its right to a war indemnity from the Turks in case Moldavia and Wallachia receive independence. The interference of the Western powers in the Russo-Turkish negotiations in 1772-73 made Russia to turn down its proposal. Nevertheless, Russia tried to do its best to uphold special terms for Moldavia and Wallachia in the treaty that granted these principalities the right to enjoy the inner political sovereignty within the Ottoman Empire.

The Treaty of Kucuk-Kaynarca between Russia and Turkey was signed on 10 July 1774. The Russian proposals were taken into account, and the situation of the Danubian principalities within Turkey was considerably improved. Russia was actually recognized as a patron of their population.

The Convention of Aynaly-Kaivach between Russia and Turkey was signed on 10 March 1779. It legally confirmed the concessions made by the Porte to Moldavia. Besides, the Moldavian representative in Istanbul received diplomatic immunity, and the Porte promised not to impinge upon the freedom of Christian religion.

However, the Turkish authorities repeatedly violated their commitments. A message from the Metropolitan and boyars of Wallachia with yet another request to render assistance to the principality reached St Petersburg in 1802. On 16 July 1802, the Russian ambassador in Istanbul handed in a note to the Turkish government with concrete proposals on the settlement of the situation in the principalities. This initiated the negotiations which led to the Russo-Turkish agreement on the rights of Wallachia and Moldavia by which the rights and privileges of the Danubian principalities within the Ottoman Empire were not only confirmed, but were verified and extended considerably. Yet, a peaceful stage of solving the problem ended in 1806 when Russia was again forced to defend the rights of the fraternal nations of Moldavia and Wallachia with the help of the army.

On 27 June 1807, Metropolitan Benjamin (Kostaki) of Jassy and twenty authoritative bishops and boyars appealed to the Russian Emperor Alexander I, ‘Exterminate the intolerable Turkish dominion which oppresses our poor people – the Moldavians. Unite this land with your saved-by-God power… Let it be one flock and one shepherd… This is the heartfelt entreaty of the whole nation.’

The centuries-old dreams of the Moldavians again did not come true this time, but a part of the historic Moldavia was taken under Russian protection in 1812, thus being delivered from the violence of the infidels. Another part of Moldavia together with Wallachia became the single Romanian state later. Its independence was gained with the active involvement of Russia, which upheld the legitimate right of the fraternal nation to self-determination after the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78.

While accusing the Russian side in its adherence to the territorial expansionism, the Romanian side cites the fact that in the 18^th century the Holy Synod of the Russian Church ‘appointed hierarchs in the conquered Romanian principalities to rule {…} the two Metropolias under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate even without consent of the latter.’ Indeed, during the Russo-Turkish War the Holy Synod of the Russian Church temporarily established the Exarchate of Moldova-Wallachia that was revived in 1808-12 and finally abolished in 1821. Yet one should not forget that it was done with the will of the Wallachians and Moldavians. According to the mentioned act of the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church of 1882, ‘the history of struggle [of the local population] with the Phanariote monks is a real drama that causes pain to all Christian hearts. There is frankness on the one hand […]; but on the other hand – ingratitude, care for their own interests, and the wish to oppress and have absolute power, in short, the exploitation of the whole nation.’ Metropolitan Gabriel (Banulesku-Bodoni), a Moldavian, was placed at the head of the diocese in 1792. He did his best to amend the consequences of the previous rule in the principalities, but was soon arrested by the Turkish authorities and imprisoned in Istanbul for a while.

In 1812 the territory of the present Moldavia in church terms was a ‘strip farming’ of the odd parishes under the jurisdiction of several Churches, which laid mutual claims to them. In 1813, the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church consolidated these parishes, thus reviving and strengthening the Orthodox Church of Moldova. The Patriarchate of Constantinople has never contested the establishment of the Diocese of Kishinev of the Russian Orthodox Church, which took place in 1813 due to the ardent wish of the Moldavians and the agreements between Russia and the Porte. The relations between the Russian Church and the Church of Constantinople during the 19^th century were never clouded by the problem of the canonical belonging of the territory between the Prut and Nistru Rivers. There were no church controversies even when Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow, caring for the ecclesiastical peace in Romania, supported the wish of His Holiness Patriarch Cyril VII of Constantinople to resolve the matter of the autocephalous status of the Romanian Orthodox in a strictly canonical manner.

The legitimacy of the establishment of the Diocese of Kishinev of the Russian Orthodox Church on the territory of Bessarabia was not questioned in the 19^th century either. Fraternal relations between the Romanian and Russian Churches developing at that time testify this. For many years, the hierarchs from the right bank of the Nistru River considered Russia as the major defender of the Orthodox faith in the region.

Remarkable in this regard is the fact of an appeal of Metropolitan Sophronius of Jassy in 1859 to Archbishop Anthony of Kishinev as to the closest spiritual and administrative person of the Russian Church with a request to intercede before the Emperor to defend the Church from the current oppression of the local government. ‘Memorandum on the underhand plotting to overthrow the Orthodox faith in the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia and on the means to maintain it’ presented with a blessing of Metropolitan Sophronius by his confidant to the Russian government contained a request ‘to ensure the inviolability and rights of the Orthodox faith in the principalities.’ The memorandum said, ‘The religious and moral reform of the Romanian nation current in the Danubian principalities is not fortuitous as it was prepared little by little during a long time, now on the pretext of protection of and compassion for a weak nation which was [allegedly] under threat of the influence of the powerful neighbour [Russia], now in the form of the European civilization with the appearance of different mentors who did not disclosed their real purposes and intentions, but seized the minds of the people, enslaved them and made them instruments for the attainment of their goals… Certain clerics, incited by the English consul, preached secretly that prophecies about all the evil in Europe coming from the north, that is from Russia, are coming true.’

A special commission of the laymen was appointed at that time in Romania to amend the Statutes of the Church. The religious printing-houses ‘were commissioned to print the Holy Scriptures and all liturgical books in Latin characters instead of the Slavonic and, moreover, in the language that not all Romanians understood, which was invented as half-Latin and half-French. […] The Monastery of Niamets, this stronghold of Orthodoxy and the source of religious education in Moldavia, which has been under protection of the Russian monarchs from the earliest times and supplied the whole country with liturgical and edifying books […] was deprived of all moral and material means.’ While asserting that ‘all material means of the Moldavian Church remained only in the Russian Empire,’ the author of the cited memorandum assured that he was commissioned by Metropolitan Sophronius and the Orthodox monasteries of Moldavia ‘to undertake any actions […] approved by the government of the Empire to which the orphaned Moldavian Church completely entrusts itself as to its only hope, support and defence.’

In 1918 the Romanian Orthodox Church, without preliminary communication with the Moscow Patriarchate and against the will of the Moldavian believers included the Diocese of Kishinev within itself, having reorganized it into the so-called ‘Metropolia of Bessarabia.’ The Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church properly assessed this action.

However, His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon did not say that ‘the believers should retain the right to determine the Church under which omophorion they wish to remain,’ as is erroneously said in the document presented by the Romanian side at the talks in Bulgaria. On the contrary, in a message to the chairman of the Holy Synod of the Romanian Church Metropolitan Pimen of Moldova and Suceava in October 1918, His Holiness Tikhon insisted on discussing this problem exclusively ‘through the proper canonical relations between the Russian and Romanian Churches,’ with the opinion of the clergy and people of the Diocese of Kishinev taken into account. The coexistence of the two jurisdictions on one and the same territory was by no means contemplated.

The Patriarch protested against the uncanonical actions of the Romanian Church which ‘had no right to take a unilateral decision without consent of the Russian Church to determine the destiny of the Diocese of Kishinev in terms of placing it under its authority after the last one hundred years during which the Orthodox Bessarabia was an integral part of the Russian church body.’ According to Patriarch Tikhon, ‘this line of action of the Romanian Holy Synod runs contrary to both the spirit of Christian love, and the canonical rules of old and the sacred customs of the Orthodox Church. The assertion that political union allegedly always entails the unity of the Churches cannot serve as a justification in this case for the Romanian church authorities, first of all because it has not been justified by history and, secondly, because this point of view is based on the confusion of the nature of the Church with political life which are heterogeneous by their essence… Besides, the very act of the joining of Bessarabia to the Kingdom of Romania, as we have asserted earlier, is far from being generally accepted from the international point of view and can be reconsidered when the outcome of the world war will be taken into final consideration.’ The message of the Patriarch ended with a warning, ‘If the Romanian Church, without regard to our objections, will try to forcefully consolidate the present state of affairs for its benefit, we shall have to break all fraternal and canonical communion with the Romanian Synod and bring this case to the judgement of other Orthodox Churches.’

Bucharest ignored the protest of Patriarch Tikhon in 1918, and the Romanian side uses now the following words to explain it, ‘the diocese under the Moscow Patriarchate ceased its existence de facto due the reunification of Bessarabia with its Motherland on 27 March 1918.’

However, its is known that the Holy Synod of the Romanian Church began to place the church structures of Bessarabia under Bucharest by demanding to withdraw Archbishop Anastasius of Kishinev and Khotin and his suffragan bishops Gabriel of Akkerman and Dyonisius of Izmail from the Russian Orthodox Church. The suffragan bishops refused, and the Romanian authorities arrested them and deported them to the other bank of the Nistru River. The Archbishop of Kishinev was attending the Local Council in Moscow. In the spring of 1918 he tried to get to his diocese, but the Romanian authorities did not allow him to do so. Meanwhile, the Romanian Synod announced to the Moldavian believers that Archbishop Anastasius left the diocese of his own free will. Archbishop Nikodim was appointed by Bucharest to replace him, but he got into confrontation with the clergymen and believers in Bessarabia. The Romanian official paper ‘Romynia Nouae’ published in Kishinev explained, ‘The Moldavians should know that they are guilty, as they did not make up their mind to renounce a Russian hierarch.’

Archbishop Anastasios, while in enforced exile, considered himself the head of the Moldavian Church for many years. In his letter sent to Kishinev from Jerusalem on 30 November 1925 he wrote that he had been waiting for an opportune moment to come back to the Diocese of Kishinev. This letter arouse great enthusiasm of the clergymen and laymen of the Moldavian Church who were experiencing harsh treatment by the Romanian authorities. Incidents are known of the physical torture of those who attended divine services celebrated in the Church Slavonic language. As a result, many servants of the Church fled beyond the borders of Moldavia.

Many testimonies of the resistance of the clergymen and laymen of the Diocese of Kishinev to the Romanian authorities cast doubts on the assertion that ‘in 1918, after one hundred and six years of the Tsarist occupation, the people of Bessarabia, taking advantage of their freedom and having expressed their wish, applied with a petition to return the Bessarabian Church under canonical patronage… of their Mother Church – the Romanian Orthodox Autocephalous Church.’ There were no petitions of the faithful and clergy of Moldavia to the authorities of the Russian Orthodox Church with a request to move to the bosom of the Romanian Orthodox Church. Historians do not know about the petition of the Moldavian believers to the Romanian Patriarchate mentioned by the Romanian side, though the demands of the politicians imposed on the Church by force are known.

In 1918-19 the supporters of the integration of Moldova into the Romanian state complained that ‘there are priests who not only do not want to mention… the king, his family and the Holy Synod at the Holy Liturgy, but incite people to the liberation’ from the power of Romania. The situation in which the majority of priests, teachers and village headmen refused to take part in the pro-Romanian propaganda brought about the intensification of prohibition of the use of the Church Slavonic language in divine services, and of the Russian language in sermons. Gendarmes kept the observance of this ban under surveillance. Siguranza (the Romanian political police) of the city of Beltsy reported in 1919 that the ‘Moldavians were hostile to the Romanian administration, avoid the Romanian clergy […] and threaten the priests when they mention the name of the king in church.’

According to the Romanian lawyer V. Гrbicianu who worked in Bessarabia in 1918-23, ‘the struggle in the church sphere found its expression in the clear tendency of the clergymen towards the independence of the Bessarabian Church from the Romanian Church, the keeping of the Slavonic language and church rituals, the keeping of the Russian language and Russian history as major subjects in theological seminaries, and towards the use of all the wealth of the diocese only in the Bessarabian interests.’

An attempt to introduce in October of 1914 the new style in the church calendar brought about confrontation of the Moldavian believers and clergymen with the Romanian administration of many years. Even the Romanian administration itself noted strong traditions of the Russian Orthodoxy in the Bessarabian society and saw in it the main reason for mass protests. Siguranza reported that ‘the Tsarist dominion in Bessarabia had imparted to the Church in this province an ‘Orthodox’ aspect which is being preserved by both its spirit and its outer appearance. Faith is shrouded in mysticism is inherent in the Slavic people, while churches, with a little exception, are replete with icons of the Kazan and Don saints who belong to ‘Russian Orthodoxy’ with inscriptions in the Slavonic language.’

The mass media and public opinion in Bessarabia backed the believers, yet the disobedient clergy were suppressed by force. However, the wide popular protest did not cease, turning into a national spiritual resistance movement by 1928. The nationalist radicals mocking at the ‘Moldavian’ language and seeking to change its name into the ‘Romanian’ language faced particularly strong opposition.

Even the most fierce proponents of Romanization of Bessarabia including O. Gibu had to acknowledge that ‘the national (i.e. pan-Romanian) idea was naught for all classes including peasants, clergy and boyars… The ‘Moldavians’ of Bessarabia were no longer an effective part of the Romanian people and felt no affection for them. Neither did they seek to identify themselves as Romanians in any way… In Bessarabia we are dealing even more with a separate Moldavian people.’

In 1938, persecutions on the ethnic grounds, including those in the church sphere, intensified. The Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church forbade their priests any other language than Romanian for talking with their parishioners even during confession. This measure actually meant excommunication for many believers in Bessarabia. The alienation between clergy and people increased, making for the spreading of sectarianism and religious indifference.

After the short stay of Bessarabia within the Soviet Union in 1940-1941, the Great Patriotic War broke out, Romania being an ally of the Nazi regime.

This time the territory of the Romanian Church was extended. Added were (as the Romanian side put it, ‘for pastoral-missionary reasons (taking into account the Stalinist persecution against the Orthodox Church in the area‘) the Romanian mission in Transnistria, which included the Odessa region, and partly the Nikolayev and Vinnitsa regions. Besides, the North Bukovina was included in one of the Romanian dioceses. The Romanian dictator Ion Antonescu personally specified how the missionary work was to be done in Transnistria and how the missionaries were to be selected. The territory first ruled by the Reichsministerium fьr die besetzten Ostgebiete and given to Romania under the German-Romanian Treaty of 30 August 1941 was subject to repressions against Moldavian clergy. The new style was forcefully introduced.

Bishop Bessarion Puiu, the head of the mission from November 1942 and a close friend of Ion Antonescu, had a privilege to approach the dictator directly, rather than His Beatitude Patriarch Nicodim, to solve certain problems of church life. ‘The conquest of any nation,’ he wrote in his letter to Antonescu of 5 January 1943, ‘begins with weapons and continues by the administration, but it cannot be completed without spiritual conquering of the nation.’

Romanian missionaries perceived themselves as a force for gradual organization of the church life throughout Russia. While forming the missionary personnel, Antonescu’s regime granted them many privileges. By the autumn of 1942, two hundred and sixty-five out of four hundred and sixty-one priests who exercised spiritual care for the population living on the territory between the Nistru and Bug Rivers were commissioned from Romania. A special commission was set up by the Diocese of Izmail to identify the clerics who refused to take part in the Romanization of the local population and give them out to Romanian gendarmerie that would sent them to concentration camps.

Some Romanian clerics had to collaborate with siguranza. The people were made known of partisans and parishioners of patriotic mood arrested by police on the strength of their reports. Pictures of Hitler, Mussolini and Antonescu were sold and distributed in churches. Anniversaries of the aggression against the USSR, capture of large cities, Hitler’s birthday, and other events of the kind were celebrated as feasts.

As the frontline advanced, the Romanian clerics who felt themselves aliens in Moldavia and Transnistria fled to Romania. The fact that the ‘Metropolia of Bessarabia’ functioned until 1944 when the Soviet communist regime forced it to interrupt its activity temporarily, was welcomed by the peoples of Moldavia and the neighboring areas of Ukraine as much as the end of occupational administration on this territory.

It is not clear on what the authors of the quoted text base their assertion that this church structure interrupted its activity only ‘temporarily.’ There are written testimonies to the unconditional recognition by the then authorities of the Romanian Orthodox Church of the Diocese of Kishinev within the Russian Orthodox Church.

In 1945–1947, His Beatitude Patriarch Nicodim met with some Russian Orthodox bishops including His Holiness Patriarch Alexy I and Bishop Ieronim of Kishinev. All questions concerning the canonical grounds of the Diocese of Kishinev entering the Moscow Patriarchate were settled.

In his letter of 20 May 1945 to His Holiness Patriarch Alexy I, His Beatitude Patriarch Nicodim of Romania promised to do his best to return church property that was taken out of Moldavia by the retreating Romanian troops, ‘It was too late that we knew about some facts of wartime, and we are sincerely sorry and regretful about that… Everything that was taken from the churches in Bessarabia and Transnistria must be returned. The Armistice Conditions Control Commission is working for that, and the things are going well in this direction.’

From that time until 1992 the Romanian side laid no claims to the Church of Moldova. Therefore, as it is noted in the Statement of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church of 7 November 2007, the statute of limitation for the matter has long expired according to Canon 17 of the Fourth Ecumenical Council and Canon 25 of the Sixth Ecumenical Council,

A suggestion that ‘negotiations on the jurisdictional rights of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic‘ did not take place ‘because this territory had been already occupied by the Soviet Union‘ and that ‘the Communist troops have already arrived in Romania in order to impose a totalitarian Communist regime’ sounds unconvincing, as the awareness of the Churches in their rightness allowed them to defend their canonical positions strongly and consistently even in a more harsh historical reality. Serving as an example to this could be the aforementioned reaction of St Tikhon, the Patriarch of All Russia, to the illegal separation of the Diocese of Kishinev from the Russian Orthodox Church, which he expressed in conditions of the bloody anti-Church terror perpetrated by the Soviet regime.

When the witnesses who remembered the events of the establishment and activity of the ‘Metropolia of Bessarabia’ were alive, neither Romanians nor Russians doubted the illegality of any attempts to ‘reactivate’ it. Now, as many years have passed, it is very convenient to use the very fact of the Romanian jurisdiction in Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova as an argument and regard any doubts in its legality as a historical hypothesis.

While calling the events of August 1944 ‘the Soviet Communist occupation‘ of Moldavia, the authors of the aforementioned statements seek to revise the reality, which the entire Europe regards as the liberation from Nazism. By doing that, they desecrate the sacred memory of the soldiers who sacrificed their lives to save humanity, and question the foundations of the present law and order in Europe, including the principle of inviolability of the frontiers established after the Second World War.

Of course, most Romanians do not share this view as they never shared the Fascist sentiments of a small clique of politicians that pulled Romania into the war on Hitler’s side. Through the efforts of its best sons and daughters, Romania managed to overcome that misfortune and to end the war on the victors’ side. However, the assertion that the Nazi army ‘had been actually driven from both Bessarabia and Romania by the early August of 1944 because the Romanian army turned their weapons against Nazi Germany’ is not really correct, as well as the assertion that the Romanian troops fought against ‘the Soviet Communist army’ only ‘in the first stage‘ of the war. It is well-known that Moldavia and most of Romania were liberated as a result of the Jassy-Kishinev Offensive conducted by the Second and Third Ukrainian Fronts with support of the Black See Fleet still confronted by the Heeresgruppe Sьdukraine, including the 6^th and 8^th German and the 3^rd and 4^th Romanian armies and certain German-Romanian units. The rapid Soviet offence precipitated the anti-Nazi uprising in Romania, and the Soviet troops liberated Bucharest together with the Romanian insurgents on 29 August 1944.

Contrary to the opinion of the authors of the documents presented by the Romanian side, it is known that the Romanian people highly appreciated the exploit of the Soviet soldiers and have gratefully remembered them as liberators of Romania. The then authorities of the Romanian Orthodox Church shared these sentiments.

Below we quote some words of the Romanian hierarchs said during the visit of His Holiness Patriarch Alexy I to Bucharest in 1947.

‘We have survived the brutal war, but in this time of trouble we met friendship and the full understanding of the Soviet army and the Russian people’ (from the address of His Beatitude Patriarch Nicodim at meeting His Holiness Patriarch Alexy in Bucharest on 1 June 1947).

‘In the person of Your Holiness I thank the Russian people for their help, which […] they gave us to unite the North Transylvania, a natural part of Romania, with our country. We shall never forget this noble act, since it took many lives of the people in spiritual care of Your Holiness to liberate a part of our spiritual children from the crucible of grave suffering’ (from the address of Metropolitan Nicolai of Sibiu at meeting His Holiness Patriarch Alexy I in Sibiu on 5 June 1947).

‘We humbly admire the heroic exploit of Your Holiness that inspired the hearts of the Soviet soldiers who pursued the enemy without let-up and liberated the northern part of our Transylvania’ (from the address of Bishop Vasilie of Timiєoara at meeting Patriarch Alexy I in the Timiєoara Cathedral on 6 June 1947).

As we remember the lessons from the past, we should be aware of repeating tragic mistakes. We should rather remember the useful and valuable examples of fraternal cooperation and mutual aid, which have been many in the history of our nations.

The representatives of the Romanian Orthodox Church say, ‘Nowadays all Orthodox Sister Churches should bear in mind modern realities and value even more fraternal fellowship, cooperation and pastoral care for the Orthodox believers rather than focus on jurisdictional claims.’ This appeal is worth attention. But should it not be addressed to the Romanian Patriarchate in connection with its recent actions against the Orthodox Church of Moldova?

The Russian Orthodox Church is as always ready for an open dialogue with the Romanian Patriarchate, proceeding from the conviction that the ecclesiastical situation in the Republic of Moldova can be settled only if we adhere to the canonical norms of the Holy Orthodox Church through the proper church decisions with the interests of the Orthodox citizens of Moldova taken into account.

• Statement concerning the arguments of the representatives of the Romanian Orthodox Church justifying the decision to establish dioceses of the Metropolia of Bessarabia