Romania Churches Divided Over 11-Year-Old's Abortion Approval

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) - The government ruled Thursday that an 11-year-old rape victim would be allowed to have an abortion in Romania, dismissing the opposition of 20 church groups.

Pro-life Christian Orthodox groups had threatened to press charges if the girl was allowed to have an abortion in Romania since it would be beyond the 14 week legal limit. The girl is 21 weeks pregnant.

The stance of the church groups was in contrast to the Romanian Orthodox Church's official view that the decision should be left to the girl's family. The parents initially wanted to travel to a country where it would be legal.

"We are talking about ... the rights of this child who was subjected to rape and incest," said Theodora Bertzi, a Labor Ministry official and who was sitting on a committee, made up of government officials and experts, who ruled on the case.

The girl's pregnancy was revealed earlier this month when her parents took her to a doctor because she appeared sick. She told doctors she had been raped by her 19-year-old uncle, who has since disappeared.

The case has bitterly split the medical community, child rights groups and the public.

In a statement, the church groups offered "material, spiritual and psychological help" to the child's impoverished family, adding they would also rear the child in a church institution if the family was unable to care for it.

But splits were apparent even within the church.

Constantin Stoica, spokesman for the Romanian Orthodox Church, to which more than 80 percent of Romanians belong, said Wednesday it was "an exceptional situation which must be treated in an exceptional manner and the family is the only one to take this decision."

He said the church considers abortion a crime, but this belief applies to normal circumstances and not to incest or rape.

AP: Church welcomes ruling to allow icons in schools

BUCHAREST, Romania—The Romanian Orthodox Church is celebrating a ruling by the country’s top court that allows religious icons to remain in schools.

The Romanian Supreme Court overturned a 2007 appeal court ruling that icons should be removed from schools because they discriminated against atheists and people of other religions.

About 80 percent of Romanians are Orthodox Christians and icons are commonly seen in homes, buildings and cars. The church has enjoyed a revival after communism.

Orthodox Church spokesman Constantin Stoica said June 13 that the community, not state institutions, should decide what religious symbols are allowed in public spaces.

Ex-Priest Jailed Over Exorcism Death

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — A former priest began a seven-year jail term Wednesday for murdering a young nun during an exorcism ritual when she was bound, chained to a cross and denied food and water for days.

Irina Cornici, 23, died from dehydration, exhaustion and suffocation during an ordeal that stunned Romania and prompted the Orthodox Church to promise reforms and psychological tests to screen potential clergy.

The former priest, Daniel Corogeanu, and four nuns were all convicted and sentenced in September but Corogeanu was freed pending an appeal, which he lost Tuesday. He was picked up by police in the remote northeast Wednesday and sent to jail.

Cornici, who had previously been treated for schizophrenia, had believed she heard the devil talking to her. Corogeanu and the four nuns decided to try an exorcism ritual in June 2005 using techniques that the Romanian Orthodox Church condemned as "abominable".

The church, which has benefited from a religious revival in recent years, defrocked Corogeanu and excommunicated the four nuns, who in September were handed five- and six-year jail terms.

When arrested Wednesday, Corogeanu said he would serve his term if that was God's will, the national news agency Rompres reported.

Corogeanu, a Romanian, dropped out halfway through training for the priesthood, but still served as a priest for the secluded Holy Trinity convent in northeast Romania because of a shortage of suitable candidates for convents and monasteries.

Ministry to Romanians is student's passion

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (BP)--At age 23 Petru Matasaru, living in his native Romania, received his first Bible as a gift from a friend of his father.

The Word of God was a rare commodity under Romania's restrictive communist regime, and one copy was worth more than $100 in today’s dollars. Yet despite the opportunity to learn the saving message of Christ, Matasaru sold the Bible to help fund a sinful lifestyle.

Today, more than 30 years later, Matasaru takes a much different view of Scripture. After jumping from country to country across Europe in a search of happiness, he found salvation in Christ, moved to the United States and eventually enrolled as a master of divinity student at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky.

Matasaru's journey to faith began in Romania shortly after World War II. The son of a pastor, Matasaru rebelled against his father and rejected Christianity. Family members tried to tell him about Jesus, but he refused to listen.

"Drinking, playing cards and wasting away all my money, I continued to reject God," he said of his young adult years. "During this period of my life I thought that Christianity was only for older people, as the communist regime taught us in school."

In 1980, Matasaru began a search for a better life. First he escaped across the Romanian border to Yugoslavia, where he served two months in prison for entering the country illegally. A Slavic immigration officer then sent Matasaru to Austria, but he crossed a boarder illegally once again, escaping to Munich, Germany.

In Munich he started an electronics and computer store with his brother. When business turned bad, Matasaru sunk even more deeply into sin. His brother eventually pushed him out of the business, and Matasaru developed plans for revenge.

"Because of pressure, I began to drink and smoke even more so than before, and I tried to drown my sorrows in alcohol," he said. "As a result of all these things, my life became a deception and I did not know how to solve my problems. My life was a complete disaster."

But a missionary from the Southern Baptist Convention's then-Foreign Mission Board (now International Mission Board) brought a ray of hope to Matasaru's life. Paul Box, who worked as a chaplain on an American military base in Munich, met Matasaru's sister and learned about his situation. Box attempted to visit him both at home and at work.

"Many times Pastor Box came into our store and to our home," Matasaru said. "But we -- my brother Paul and I -- kicked him out. Once my brother even told him not to come to our door anymore. But Pastor Box came again and invited us to church, telling us about the love of Jesus."

Matasaru finally accepted a dinner invitation from Box, and Box took a German businessman to the dinner to translate Box's English into German and shared the Gospel with Matasaru. He did not believe Box's message right away, but Matasaru did begin attending church. He continued his sinful lifestyle and often attended church drunk, but one Sunday the Holy Spirit moved in his heart and Matasaru was converted to faith in Christ.

"My life over time changed," he said. "Those things that were a part of my sinful past lost their hold on me, and I ceased to do them."

After being baptized and beginning a program of discipleship, Box recommended that Matasaru move to America. He accepted the recommendation and arrived in Chicago, where he joined a Romanian church, participated in ministry to the homeless, served as a chaplain at the Cook County Jail and even began a preaching ministry.

In Chicago Matasaru also earned a bachelor's degree from the Moody Bible Institute and married his wife Heather, who attended Moody as well.

The Matasaru family moved to New York City in 2001, where Matasaru did mission work among Romanians and met a pastor who encouraged him to attend seminary. While working with two church plants, he enrolled at Southern's New York extension center.

Upon advice from a professor, Matasaru and his family moved to Louisville, Ky., in 2003 to continue his education at the seminary's Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism and Church Growth.

He hopes to graduate in May and then return to Europe and reach fellow Romanians for Christ -– with a passion for helping his countrymen find the freedom he has experienced as a follower of Jesus.

"I plan to continue preaching in Romanian churches and do evangelism among the Romanian people wherever I can," Matasaru said. "Ultimately my goal is to reach Romanians in Romania and in the Republic of Moldova with the Lord's help."
--30--
David Roach is a writer for Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Head of Romanian Baptist Church, revealed as Securitate collaborator, dies

Canadian Press
1 day ago

TIMISOARA, Romania - The head of Romania's Baptist Church, whose past as a collaborator of the feared Securitate secret police was revealed recently, has died. He was 62.
Petru Dugulescu died late Thursday of a heart attack in Timisoara, in western Romania, church officials said.

His death came a week after the weekly Banateanul reported that he had been an informer in the early 1980s, reporting to the Communist regime on another Baptist priest and foreigners with whom he came into contact.

As head of Romania's small Baptist Church, he attended yearly prayer breakfasts organized at the White House after communism ended. He was also a legislator for the centre-right Peasant Party from 1992 to 2000.

He was recruited by the Securitate in the early 1980s after he applied for a passport to travel to Switzerland and the United States, a rare privilege under the Communist regime of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, Banateanul reported.

Dugulescu told the paper he had been an informer for 18 months. The Securitate stopped working with him in 1982, the paper reported, claiming he was hiding information from them. He said he was harassed by the Securitate after he stopped being an informant.

In December 1989, he played a key role in the anti-communist uprising, joining protests against the forced deportation of Hungarian priest Laszlo Toekes. Those protests sparked the revolt that led to Ceausescu's execution on Christmas Day 1989.

The Securitate relied on an estimated 700,000 informers to keep tabs on Romanians and foreigners.

Dugulescu's funeral will take place Monday. He is survived by a wife and two sons who live in the U.S.

Romania: Adventist national ad campaign declares Bible reading a must

news.adventist.org

Beatrice Lospa never imagined a nationwide initiative to make reading the Bible attractive and accessible to every Romanian would be so popular.

A coordinator of the Seventh-day Adventist Church's Bible reading clubs, Sola Scriptura (Latin for "Scripture only"), Lospa eagerly tells how a national advertising campaign backed by an anonymous donation is blending high-profile marketing with the church's basic mission outreach. Now, hundreds are coming to Bible reading clubs across Romania.

"We never thought we would find ourselves at this crossroads," Lospa says while standing at a street intersection in the heart of Bucharest. For her and her team the crossroads are literal.

"Look, our billboard will come up next," she says, beaming with excitement at seeing the Sola Scriptura ad roll up on an electronic billboard -- a picture of a thoughtful-looking man at the National Library with the words, "Knowing how to read does you no good if you have never read the Bible. solascriptura.ro. A program for reading the Bible."

The slogan seemed a bit risky to some church members, Lospa says, but with access to 148 billboards in Bucharest, Constanta, Timisoara, Brasov and other cities around the country, church leaders decided to be bold.

Romanians had little access to Bibles under communism's 50-year rule, Lospa explains. "Today, everyone seems to be talking about religion, but many people have little or no knowledge of the role the Holy Scriptures play in Christianity."

"Romanians have a Christian Orthodox tradition where priests passed on knowledge about Christianity, the Bible and its message, to the people," Lospa says.

"Romanians have yet to read the Holy Scriptures by themselves."

In 2000, Adventist Church leaders tried to stir interest among Romanians by inviting people to simply read the Bible. Sola Scriptura reading clubs were given meeting space by the church's 20 nationwide Christian bookstores, which share the same name.

But the clubs were sparsely attended and lacked financial backing for promotion. That changed when a donation of 60,000 euros (about US$88,000) arrived in the Sola Scriptura bank account.

"I cannot express in words the emotion, the joy and the intensity of the feelings I had, because the money came in response to our prayers," Lospa says.

Then the anonymous donor set up a meeting with her. "I believe I can do more," he said confidently while sitting across from her in her office, she recalls.

"What can be more than 60,000 euros?" Lospa asked him.

He explained that as president of the largest billboard advertising company in Romania, 60 percent of the country's outdoor ad business was under his control.

Impressed, Lospa congratulated her guest. "Oh, I didn't tell you this in order for you to congratulate me," he quipped, "but for you to think of what you should write on the billboards I intend to place at main road junctions and in the bus and tram stops."

Years earlier the donor attended the Sola Scriptura two-year Bible course after a young man in Constanta offered him a flier. "I bought books from the Sola Scriptura bookstore, I learned how to pray and I applied everything I had learned to the business I run," he told Lospa. "Things are different than before, and this is only because I began to apply God's principles. I think it's high time I did something to thank Him. It's nothing compared to what He has done for me."

After the messages were posted on billboards in July, Web traffic on the Sola Scriptura site doubled to 5,383 visitors. Nearly 300 registered online to join a local club. Each meeting at various sites draws about 30 to 50 attendees. Most sites host several meetings that gather biweekly.

"This is a club, not a seminar," says Liviu Stanescu, a pastor in his 30s, who runs a local club in Bucharest.

Starting with the book of Genesis, the Bible reading clubs are designed to encourage conversation. Participants are urged to ask questions based on both the Bible and their experiences, Stanescu explains.

After a Bible reading class, many participants ask "Where do we go from here?" Another course addresses prophecy because the first club reading doesn't include prophetic books such as Isaiah, Daniel or Revelation. Other course topics include improving health, family life and discussions about the parables of Jesus.

Participants come from all walks of life. "We have ordinary people and university professors, scientists and even one senator," Stanescu says.

"The Orthodox Church invites people to the church," he says, "but we are inviting people to experience a personal relationship with God by pointing them to the Bible. You can rejoice in God everyday, not only on holy days, we say. People react to what they find in Sola Scriptura as if this was something new to discover in their Christian life."

In August, Lospa and her team were in the middle of their four-month long public billboard campaign. The Sola Scriptura team, busy with the Internet, radio and television promotion, was reporting a doubling of participation in Bible reading clubs despite the Summer holidays.

"The Bible offers a challenge and an invitation that one's preparation for life is not complete without being confronted with the message of the Bible," Lospa says. "The Bible helps to overcome that void."

Church TV in Romania to be also used to retort

Eurasian Secret Services Daily Review
AIA

Romanian daily Cotidianul reports that in addition to its own daily newspaper, radio station, publishing house and printers, Romania's Orthodox Church now has its own television channel.

Commentator Bogdan Pacurar marks in the paper’s latest issue that although he hasn't been in office for a month yet, Romania’s Patriarch Daniel has already revealed the kind of management skills that would be the envy of any media mogul. But what's really surprising is that an institution that is so geared towards the future is at the same time being so secretive about its past, observer points out.

Cotidianul underlines that the country’s Orthodox Church refuses to recognise a report compiled by the Council for Studying Securitate Archives (CNSAS) according to which Metropolitan Nicolae Corneanu worked as a Securitate spy for 41 years.

This is only the latest example of the snub demonstrated towards the archives studying institution. Yet the Church is now setting up a special commission subordinate to the
Synode solely for the purpose of re-examining the files, the paper notes. „With the church TV, Romania's Orthodox Church now has the complete range of media at its disposal, which it can use to pronounce its own brand of truth," Cotidianul concludes.

Last week the Romanian Orthodox Church complained that CNSAS deliberately and illegally leaked information to the media about clerics accused of collaborating with the feared communist-era secret police. The Romanian Orthodox Church, to which more than 80 percent of Romanians belong, has said in the past that collaboration with thecommunist secret police,
Securitate, should be considered an internal matter rather then an issue of public debate.

www.axisglobe. com/article. asp?article= 1417

Scientology Volunteer Ministers Bring Disaster Preparedness to Romania

American Chronicle

In 2006, Romania was devastated by one of the worst flood seasons in the history of the country. And although there was no loss of life, so many Romanians were affected that it brought home the importance of having well trained emergency response personnel in place. Which explains why officials, community groups and the general public have been so interested in the disaster relief training program provided by the Scientology Volunteer Ministers Eastern European Goodwill Tour.

On arriving in the city, the Volunteer Ministers met with the Mayor of Craiova, Romania and briefed him on the purpose of the tour—to bring real help to towns and cities throughout the region. They emphasized the need to ensure the city is prepared for any future disasters. The mayor not only approved the tent to be erected right in the middle of town in front of the prominent National Theatre, but he also provided this venue to the Volunteer Ministers free of charge.

The first to take advantage of the Volunteer Ministers disaster relief training program was the local Red Cross, whose staff and volunteers attended seminars on communication and ethics. The Red Cross personnel also learned to deliver Scientology assists—simple techniques developed by L. Ron Hubbard that handle the spiritual component in trauma.

The Volunteer Ministers and Red Cross personnel then teamed up to deliver a seminar to some 50 participants that promoted the message, "Do Not Allow Yourself to Become the Next Victim—Be Competent When Lives Depend on You." This seminar not only covered first aid, but also trained people on a Scientology assists that helps overcome disorientation and introversion. The Volunteer Ministers' presence in Craiova was firmly established by a grand opening event in the center of town, where 40 youngsters dressed in traditional costumes performed dances to the folk music of the region.

The Vice-President of the Red Cross Committee of Craiova officially welcomed the tour and was joined by the President of "Together," another local volunteer organization, and the Mayor of Isalnita, who spoke in praise of the work and aims of the Volunteer Ministers. The city soon learned that the volunteers in the yellow t-shirts and jackets were there to help. As popular as disaster relief proved to be, it was not the only service available at the big yellow tent.

In fact, the Volunteer Ministers carried out extensive surveys to find out what the people of Craiova most needed, to determine the courses they should concentrate on providing during their stay in the city. They learned that strong family relations are what matters most to the people of this region and so concentrated on courses in communication, improving relationships and helping children, all of which were based on chapters of the Scientology Handbook, which has been published in Romanian in booklet form.

During their brief stay in Craiova, the Volunteer Ministers toured some 7,500 people through their tent and gave one-on-one help to more than 2,000 local residents, who learned that the Volunteer Ministers motto is absolutely true: Something CAN Be Done About It!

AP: Leading Romanian Orthodox bishop accused of being Securitate collaborator

BUCHAREST, Romania: Bishop Pimen, an elderly Orthodox cleric who was once vocal in demanding the return of church lands confiscated by the communists was also a collaborator of the feared Securitate secret police, the council publishing the Securitate files said Tuesday.

Pimen declined to comment on Tuesday's verdict, wishing reporters "good health."

Pimen is Archbishop for Suceava and Radauti and considered one of the luminaries of the church. He has hosted Romania's former King Michael and Britain's Prince Charles at the famous painted monasteries in northeast Romania.

The verdict came from the Council for Study of the Securitate Archives, which is also examining the Securitate files of other senior Orthodox clergy.

In September the council ruled that Andrei Andreicut, a Romanian Orthodox bishop for Alba, was a Securitate informant ordered to infiltrate groups of Eastern Rite Catholics. He said he was forced to become an informant.

Pimen is one of seven other senior Orthodox clergy who allegedly collaborated with the Securitate, some of whom were sent abroad on spying missions under communism, according to the council.

Pimen was an outspoken critic of Romania's former leftist government, which ran the country until 2004, until it promised to return lands confiscated by the communists. The bishop later called former Prime Minister Adrian Nastase "one of the great protectors of the monasteries" after the order to return lands was passed. Another court overruled the return of the lands.

Costel Stoica, a spokesman for the Romanian Orthodox Church, defended Pimen. saying: "For the church it is important how the church carried out its activity in a very hostile time under the Communist regime. It is one thing to have given into pressures of the former Securitate to save a community and another thing to have done this for personal gain," he said.

Pimen was allegedly sent abroad both by the Church and the Securitate and informed on fellow clergy and members of Romania's expat community, NewsIn news agency reported.

The church, which has gained popularity and influence since communism ended in 1989, has been opposed to opening the files of its senior clergy.

During communism, thousands of priests were imprisoned or sent to labor camps, alongside tens of thousands of other political prisoners. Many signed pledges promising to be Securitate informants when they were released.

Romania Bishop was "Securitate Informant"

BIRN

09 10 2007 Bucharest _ The Commission for Declassifying Securitate Files, CNSAS, announced on Tuesday that Bishop Pimen had been an informant for the former communist-era secret police.

Pimen, who is the Orthodox Bishop of Suceava, in eastern Romania, has refused to make any comment so far.

Two other bishops, Andrei Andreicut and Nicolae Corneanu, have been revealed to have collaborated with the once much-feared security police, the Securitate.

They have both denied harming anyone by acting as informants.

Securitate involvement within the Romanian Orthodox Church is a highly sensitive issue in a country where an estimated 87 per cent of the 21.5 million inhabitants are Orthodox.

The Church has enjoyed a revival since communism fell in 1989.

Securitate involvement within Romanian Orthodox Church, newspaper

03.10.2007
Eurasian Secret Services Daily Review
AIA


Nicolae Corneanu, Metropolitan of Banat, has admitted that for 41 years he worked as a spy for the Romanian communist regime secret police organisation Securitate, daily Cotidianul reports.
The author of a commentary, Cristian Patrasconi, calls on the new patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church, Daniel Ciobotea, to adopt a clear stance on the secret service past of church dignitaries. "He has a serious problem: on the one hand Metropolitan Nicolae Corneanu
has expressed his regret, on the other hand high dignitaries who are likewise suspected of having worked for Securitate remain unaffected.

This is the most important challenge for Daniel since he took office. If we look to Poland - a country we envy for many reasons - we see what high dignitaries who played a similarly reprehensible role between traitor and servant of the church have done there: they have
resigned."

Only a few weeks ago a council studying Securitate archives said that Andrei Andreicut, bishop for Alba in northwest Romania, was recruited in the 1980s by Securitate and was an informant of the communist-era secret police. The Securitate particularly wanted him to spy on members of the banned Eastern Rite Catholic Church, news agency Associated Press reported. Faced with the council's announcement, he denied having been a real informant, saying he had been forced into agreeing to spy in 1983, or be sent to prison for allegedly trying to bribe an official, something he denied doing.

During communism, thousands of priests were imprisoned or sent to labor camps, alongside tens of thousands of other political prisoners. Many signed written pledges promising to be Securitate informants when they were released.

www.axisglobe. com/article. asp?article= 1399

AP: Romanian Orthodox Church enthrones new patriarch

BUCHAREST, Romania: Church bells rang out around Romania on Sunday to celebrate the enthronement of Metropolitan Daniel as the new patriarch of the country's Orthodox Church.

Dozens of Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant clerics attended a ceremony, joined by hundreds of Orthodox faithful and the country's political leaders.

Daniel was elected patriarch Sept. 12. The previous patriarch, Teoctist, was elected during the communist period and he died in July of a heart attack at age 92.

Daniel, 56, is one of the youngest bishops in the church, known for his ecumenical stance and desire to modernize the church.

The Eastern Rite Catholic Church, with which the Orthodox Church has property disputes over churches seized by the state during communism, said it welcomed Daniel as the new patriarch.

Ninety priests, most of them Orthodox from Romania and other Christian Orthodox countries, but also from other Christian denominations attended the ceremony. President Traian Basescu, former President Ion Iliescu and former King Michael were also there.

People who woke up early were disappointed not to be allowed in the small Patriarchal Cathedral in Bucharest, the seat of the Romanian Orthodox Church. Two huge television screens were set up nearby so that Romanians who gathered outside could witness the event.

During the ceremony, the new patriarch was given a series of objects, including a silver staff, symbol of his authority, and a white headdress.

The Romanian Orthodox Patriarch is the only one among Orthodox heads of church to be dressed completely in white. The dress code was adopted in the 1930s as a way of distinguishing the Romanians among the orthodox faithful.

"We want to intensify the church's mission beyond the walls of the church," said the new patriarch, who added that he wished the church became more involved in the life of Romanians. He announced plans to launch a radio, a TV station and a newspaper.

Daniel was one of the founding members of a group proposing renewal for the Orthodox Church. But the group was disbanded in 1990 after he was elected Metropolitan of Iasi, a traditional stepping stone to becoming patriarch.

Born in 1951 in western Romania, Daniel spent 12 years in Western Europe studying theology and was a teacher at an Ecumenical Institute at Bossey, Switzerland — a rare privilege for Romanians who often were prevented from traveling abroad.

An estimated 87 percent of Romania's 22 million inhabitants are Orthodox, and the church has enjoyed a revival since Communism fell in 1989.

2,000 Christians meet in Romania to worship and work

Date Added: Friday 28th September 2007

by Martin Conway
Diocese of Oxford

The most important fact about the Third European Ecumenical Assembly which met from September 5 – 9 in Romania was that it met at all! Given that the first such gathering, in Switzerland’s Basel in 1989, was the first large-scale meeting of the Christians of this continent since the mutual excommunications between Rome and Constantinople in 1054, it is a matter of real joy and hope, this third time, that over 2000 Christians were sent by their many churches to meet, to worship God and to work together.

Sibiu is Romania's European Capital of Culture for 2007 and proved to be a charming place, as well as providing lessons from a difficult history in which people of different languages and confessions have learned to live and work together, even to appreciate the gifts they variously bring to common life, in a way that many more of us in Europe still badly need to!

Many many speeches

The Assembly received many, many speeches. Three of them may deserve to stand out. His All-Holiness, the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, stressed ‘that we unreservedly promote and support every ecumenical theological dialogue, on equal terms, as something absolutely necessary.

José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, spoke with conviction about the fact that the European Union is by no means just a matter of economic or legal agreements between the member nations, but essentially ‘a community of values that takes shape in a diversity of cultures and mutually enriching traditions within the framework of an enlarged and open Europe that is capable of building bridges towards other world regions and of holding a dialogue with other cultures and religions.’ Gpakilè Félémou, a Roman Catholic biologist and member of the San Egidio Community, from Guinea in W. Africa, then spoke movingly to the Forum on Migration - one of nine in which members worked on specific areas - about how Africa has had so much inflicted on it by Europe that the two cannot be separated: ‘We can save ourselves, if together, and only if together. We do not see how Africa can save itself on its own, or save the world on its own; we do not see how Europe can save itself and abandon Africa, or how Africa can face its development challenges without Europe.’

Challenges

The Message of the Assembly, prepared in a horribly rushed way, nonetheless brought out strongly, from the Forum on Migration, an impressive set of challenges: ‘As we meet Christ in our needy sisters and brothers (Matthew 25: 44-5) we ... commit ourselves to repent for the sin of exclusion; deepen our understanding of ‘otherness’; defend the dignity and rights of every human being, and ensure protection to those in need of it; call upon European states to stop illegal administrative detention of migrants (...) to uphold the value of family unity and combat trafficking in human beings and exploitation of trafficked persons.’

The Creation Forum

The Creation Forum was no less vivid in its awareness that 'we are irreversibly damaging the ecological systems on which life (all life) depends. Our life-styles are not simply a matter of personal choice - we are part of a culture that tempts us to seek identity and status through possessions and to rely on transport that puts carbon into the atmosphere.

We must bring pressure on our Governments and industrialists to re-orient their political and economic priorities, putting first the safeguarding of the Earth's life-supporting resources. Only radical alternatives can promise a happier future for the entire human race.'

Look up the website on www.eea3.org for texts and photos, or contact martinconway@abelian.net if you would like to ask more about it all.

Martin Conway is chair of the diocesan board for social responsibility

Crowned with thorns

Greatly trusted by the public, a magnet for nationalists, the sixth biggest outfit in Romania (with a 4 billion USD fortune), and probably the most secretive, has a murky past and a dodgy Board of Directors.

The Romanian Orthodox Church

Sep 13th 2007 | BUCHAREST
From The Economist print edition

The church elects a new patriarch, but still has to confront a tainted past

IN ROMANIAN politics, smears and scandals are commonplace. This week's vote for a new head of the Romanian Orthodox Church was similar. Though most public institutions are seen as corrupt and ineffective, the church enjoys high public trust. Nearly 90% of Romania's 22m people adhere to it, and its $4 billion fortune makes it the country's sixth-biggest enterprise. Yet the church is controversial. Over-zealous exorcisms have proved dangerous: a nun died in one in eastern Romania in 2005. Some church leaders who are suspicious of ecumenical dialogue with minority religions have links with nationalists. Worse, the church will not look into its communist-era past, when it was a loyal servant of Nicolae Ceausescu.

The only senior cleric to speak publicly on this, Bishop Corneanu, recalls weekly meetings with the Securitate secret police. But the late patriarch, Teoctist, resisted the opening of secret-police files on the clergy. Mircea Dinescu, of the investigative body analysing the Securitate Archives (CNSAS), says 16 files on high-ranking clergymen were burnt in the 1989 revolution. Neither Metropolitan Daniel (who was elected to replace Teoctist on September 12th) nor his rival Bartholomew admits to links with the Securitate. Yet both travelled abroad when this was all but impossible for those who did not co-operate with the regime. Mr Dinescu has said several senior clergy are proven collaborators, but he was holding fire for now. “We decided to let them run, not that they should think we want to undermine their destiny. We will decide after the election.”

This highlights how Romania's secret-police files are a political currency. The CNSAS is seen by many as a politicised institution. Metropolitan Bartholomew, an 86-year-old who once belonged to a fascist youth movement and was jailed in 1958-64, calls Mr Dinescu's approach “unpardonable interference in the internal affairs of the church”. Yet some find it puzzling that he was later sent to America for nine years. Metropolitan Daniel, who is 56, studied and taught theology abroad, including at an ecumenical institute in Switzerland.

His ecumenical views were attacked in the campaign. Fly-posters in Bucharest read: “We don't want a patriarch who used to be employed by the Catholics and is backed by the Masons.” Though his liberal stance won the electoral college, Patriarch Daniel will still have much to do to shore up his church against its critics.

New leader chosen for Romanian Orthodox Church

By Ecumenical News International

20 Sep 2007

Metropolitan Daniel of Moldavia and Bucovina, who studied in the West and taught at an ecumenical institute near Geneva while his country was under communist rule, has been elected Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church - writes Stephen Brown.

"We look forward to the Romanian Orthodox Church remaining under your leadership a committed partner to the other churches of Europe," Archdeacon Colin Williams, general secretary of the Conference of European Churches, said in a letter to Daniel after the announcement of his election on 12 September 2007.

Daniel, widely regarded as being open to Christians of other denominations, received 95 votes out of 161 in a final ballot against Metropolitan Bartolomeu Anani, seen as a more traditionalist candidate.

"There is no doubt that in you there has been elected a Patriarch ... who will see far into the challenges of living out the Gospel of Jesus Christ in Romania," Williams stated in his letter.

Daniel is a member of the presidium of CEC, which groups most of Europe's Protestant, Anglican and Orthodox churches. He has also been a member of the central committee of the World Council of Churches.

The election followed the death of Patriarch Teoctist on 30 July, aged 92. "I want to serve the church as Teoctist did," Daniel was quoted telling reporters after his election.

The church said Daniel would be enthroned on 30 September in Bucharest's Patriarchal cathedral.

Born Dan Ilie Ciobotea on 22 July 1951, the newly-elected patriarch received his doctorate from the faculty of Protestant theology in Strasbourg in eastern France in 1979, after studies in Romania, France and West Germany.

He then spent eight years as a lecturer at the WCC's Ecumenical Institute at Bossey near Geneva before returning to his home country in 1988.

Daniel has been archbishop of Iasi and metropolitan of Moldavia and Bucovina since 1990, the year after a revolution overthrew Romania's communist leader, Nicolae Ceausescu.

Since then, he has founded more than 300 parishes, 40 monasteries, and initiated and supported the building of over 250 new churches, the Patriarchate said on its Web site http://www.patriarhia.ro/CV%20eng.html.

Daniel's election came shortly after the conclusion of the Third European Ecumenical Assembly in Sibiu in central Romania, at which he underlined the role of the church in guarding the faith under communism, "to the extent to which the Romanians remained one of the most religious people of Europe".

The election took place during a wrangle between the church and the official body for the archives of the communist Securitate secret police about the naming of clerics who collaborated with the communist dictatorship.

The Associated Press quoted Mircea Dinescu, an official studying the Securitate archives, as saying that the secret police file of Daniel had been burned during the 1989 revolution.

The German Protestant news agency epd quoted Daniel as saying that involvement with the secret police needed to be condemned when it served private interests and harmed other people. "When it served the church and prevented harm to the church and the faithful, then it needs to be seen in a more nuanced way," he added.

Almost 87 per cent of Romania's 22 million people belong to the Orthodox church.

Romanian Patriarch Elected Amid Collaboration Charges

September 13, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- The Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church on September 12 elected a new patriarch -- 56-year-old Moldovan Metropolitan and Archbishop Daniel Ciubotea, who was regarded as the favorite among the candidates.

Ciubotea is seen as a modernizer within the church, but his reputation has been tainted with accusations that he had ties to the country's communist-era secret police.

Ciubotea, who becomes the sixth patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church, expressed his gratitude to the Holy Synod upon his election. "We only want to thank the Holy Synod and the members of the Electoral Religious Commission for the trust they put in me," he said.

The Holy Synod chose Ciubotea from three candidates: Ciubotea, Cluj Archbishop Bartolomeu Anania, and the bishop of Covasna and Harghita, Ioan Selejan. The three were narrowed down from the initial pool of 30 high-ranking members of the clergy.

Ciubotea had been serving as the interim patriarch after the death of the previous Patriarch, Teoctist, in late July 2007.

Western Education, Suspicious Background

Western-educated Ciubotea is known as a "modernist" who has supported reforms and has been open toward the ecumenical movement. He has also angered many traditional monasteries in Romania's eastern region of Moldavia.

Ciubotea spent a long time in the West, studying theology and working in various Catholic and Protestant institutions.

But it is that background that has cast a shadow on Ciubotea's reputation. Many in Romania have said he was allowed to live abroad because of his collaboration with Romania's feared secret police, the Securitate.

Mircea Dinescu, a representative of the Romanian national council that studies the Securitate archives, recently announced that the council knows of a group of top Orthodox clerics who had collaborated with the secret police. Dinescu did not disclose any names, but media reports have said that Ciubotea was one of those implicated.

The council invited two of the candidates, Ciubotea and Anania, for an interview, but they refused.

After the elections, the council today announced that it might fully disclose its findings about collaboration between the clergy and the secret police.

Ciubotea wasn't the only candidate who was suspected of having a murky history.

Similar accusations were also made toward the 86-year-old Anania.

From 1965-76 he held important positions in the hierarchy of the Romanian Orthodox Church in the United States. A former Securitate head, Ioan Mihai Pacepa, who defected to the West in the late 1970s, has said that Bartolomeu was sent to the United States with a "mission."

The third candidate, 56-year-old Selejan, was the only one not sullied by accusations of involvement with the secret police.

No Acknowledgment Of Collaboration

The issue of collaboration between the Securitate and the clergy has received much public attention in Romania. The late Patriarch Teoctist was criticized by many for opposing investigations into clergy members who had been accused of collaboration. After the fall of the communist regime, the church did not acknowledge the extent of the clergy's collaboration, nor did it remove tainted officials.

Alexi Kshutashvili, a Georgian theology expert living in Romania, says the issue of collaboration is a difficult one. "The Romanian media often talk about this -- that those members of the clergy who were allowed to study abroad, in Western countries, during the communist period, were in some way affiliated with the secret police, at least on the level of signing some declaration of collaboration," Kshutashvili said.

"Now to say that one was an agent of the secret police is another thing, and is difficult to say," he continued. But Kshutashvili said it is known that Ciubotea "did enjoy certain support from the political establishment, including these [latest] elections."

RFE/RL's Bucharest correspondent Sabina Fati says some people are not happy with the close ties between the church and the government even today. The church receives most of its funding from the state -- and, according to Fati, the clergy often interferes in the political process.

"The church in turn helps the state -- most blatantly during the electoral campaign, when clerics openly support one or another candidate," Fati said.

Romania's Orthodox Church has regained its popular and influential position in postcommunist Romania. Almost 87 percent of the country's population identifies with the denomination.

But Fati says that the country's clergy are not held in particularly high regard. Opinion polls show that "70 percent of believers do not really trust the priests," Fati said.

The new patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church will be inaugurated in three weeks.

Romania Appoints New Orthodox Patriarch

Reuters

BUCHAREST - Romania elected on Wednesday Metropolitan Daniel as the new Patriarch of its Orthodox Church, the national clerics council said.

Daniel, who has been the Metropolitan of the northeastern regions of Moldova and Bucovina for the past 17 years, was chosen as the country's sixth Patriarch, after a 40-day mourning period for his predecessor Teoctist, who died in July.

"I want to serve the church as Teoctist did," Daniel told reporters after the election, which he won by 95 votes out of 161.

In 1999, Teoctist invited the late Pope John Paul to Romania, the first time a Catholic Pope had visited a mainly Orthodox country in a trip aimed at narrowing the age-old split between the two churches.

Religious observers say Daniel is a leader of the reformist arm of the Romanian Orthodox Church, promoting good relations with other Christian churches.

During the 40 days of mourning for Teoctist, local media accused western-educated Daniel of collaborating with the feared Securitate, the secret police during communist rule. He has not commented on the charges.

The National Council for Studying Securitate Archives confirmed it was investigating top clerics, but declined to offer any names.

Some observers say one of his main tasks as Patriarch would be to continue Teoctist's project to build a "Cathedral of the Nation's Absolution".

Like the Christ the Saviour cathedral in Moscow, it was to be regarded as a symbol of rebirth after 50 years of communist repression, but land and financing problems have delayed construction.

New patriarch

Bishops, clergy and lay members of the Romanian Orthodox Church are choosing a new patriarch leader today, with an ecumenical and an outspoken archbishop among the favorite candidates.

Metropolitan Daniel, the 56-year-old church leader in the eastern province of Moldavia, is known for his ecumenical stance and is disliked by some church traditionalists. Nevertheless, Daniel was seen by many as the top choice for replacing Patriarch Teoctist, who died in July at age 92. Daniel’s main competition was from Metropolitan Bartolomeu Anania, 86, an influential traditionalist known for his criticism of political corruption and television’s influence in modern life. (AP)

Ceausescu's nemesis rejects Romania's 'shop window ecumenism'

By Ecumenical News International

12 Sep 2007

The Romanian Protestant cleric who is said to have sparked the 1989 revolution that led to the overthrow of Nicolae Ceausescu, the country's communist leader at the time, boycotted the recent European church assembly in Romania - writes Stephen Brown.

He says he is protesting at what he calls Romania's "shop window" ecumenism.

Bishop Lazslo Tokes of the Hungarian-speaking Reformed Church District of Oradea in Transylvania had been scheduled to address the Third European Ecumenical Assembly taking place in Sibiu from 4 to 9 September, but he failed to turn up.

"With my staying away from the assembly, I myself intend to signal that our Reformed believers long for something more than 'shop window ecumenism'," said Tokes in a message to participants posted on the web site http://eea3.reformatus.hu/, and distributed to participants in a leaflet.

Tokes, once a pastor in Timosoara in Transylvania, came to prominence in 1989 as an outspoken opponent of the Ceausescu regime. In December 1989, security forces killed scores of people who had gathered around Tokes' home to protect him from arrest, an event often credited with having provoked further demonstrations and the ultimate overthrow of Ceausescu.

In his open letter to participants, Tokes said that in the communist era a "shop window ecumenism" was forced upon churches in Romania.

"There has not been any progress concerning the appearance of an authentic and valid ecumenism ever since," he continued. "Moreover, the relation between the majority Orthodox and the other minority churches, i.e. the Greek Catholic and the Reformed Church, has become especially tense."

A separate statement on the Web site and in the leaflet states that the Reformed Church in Oradea is locked in a property dispute with the Romanian Orthodox Church.

Tokes said a proposal from his church that all Romania's churches should sign a document during the Sibiu assembly pledging ecumenical cooperation had been turned down.

As a result, his church had considered organizing a protest demonstration outside the assembly, but dropped the plan out of consideration for participants.

Organizers of the assembly told Ecumenical News International they had no comment to make on Tokes' statements.

The Sibiu assembly was organized by the Conference of European Churches and the Council of European (Roman Catholic) Bishops' Conferences. The two groupings account for most of Europe's Roman Catholic, Protestant, Anglican and Orthodox churches. It follows similar assemblies in Basel, Switzerland in 1989 and in Graz, Austria in 1997.

[With acknowledgements to ENI. Ecumenical News International is jointly sponsored by the World Council of Churches, the Lutheran World Federation, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, and the Conference of European Churches.]

Garegin II message read in Romania

At the third all-European ecumenical convention now being held, leaders from several different churches have sent their messages. The message sent by Catholicos Garegin II was read along with those of the Pope of Rome and William, Archbishop of Canterbury. His holy words were read by Bishop Viken Aykazyan, from the Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church in America.

The Catholicos’ message stated, “From the center of Armenian Christianity, the See of Holy Etchmiadzin sends greetings to those gathered in the Romanian city of Sibi; I pray that this gathering of European churches and the Roman Catholic Church will result in new successes concerning the unity of all churches.

“I pray that our Lord will bless and protect the people, churches, and government of the country of Romania, and grant them brighter days.

“Concerning the issues facing this convention, especially their relations with each other, as it is important that we speak with one voice about the values of people and their families, the unity of European countries, and the spiritual and cultural heritages of our countries.

“There are many conflicts facing our church. We are witness to the lack of love and understanding in everyday life, and the trampling of spiritual and moral values, as well as the lack of freedom of religion in certain European countries. And, everyone suffers from the problems brought forth by climate change.

“Knowing the differences we have inherited from the past, I ask to continue this dialogue we are now having about religious issues, and for us to have the strength to reconcile and differences, so our people will see our churches speaking and witnessing with one voice.

“I wish for a good and successful convention, under the theme titled “Christ’s Light Shines on All.” I pray that a foundation of respect has been put in place, thanks to this cooperation, and filled with the goodness of Christ that we find solutions to the problems facing us. Let the Lord bless your good works and make them fruitful.”

Source: Panorama.am