Bessarabian metropolitan church sees Moscow standing behind Pasat's initiative
The Bessarabian Metropolitanate presumes that the former defense minister Valeriu Pasat's initiative to introduce the Fundamentals of Orthodoxy as a compulsory school discipline is backed by Moscow.
Metropolitanate Secretary Ioann Cosoi stated to your Infotag correspondent that both the Russian Federation leadership and the Russian Orthodox Church's Patriarchate support the Pasat initiative and his political project "because they want to preserve their influence in Moldova, now that the Communists have gone from the power".
Kosoi presumes that the Russian Patriarchate supports the idea of teaching religion at school because the number of true believers, visiting temples regularly, is melting both in Russia and Moldova.
"Though Russia is regarded as a spiritual country, where there are hundreds of churches and monasteries [these are actually numbered in dozens of thousand in the country having a population of 145 million], only 2% citizens go to churches. But for raising the level of the populace's Orthodox Christian culture, only several schools in Russia teach religion and only as an optional subject - not the way they want to do here in Moldova", said the Secretary.
He reminded that the Bessarabian Metropolitan Church stands for introducing a course of religion at schools, but attending of religion lessons should be volunteer, on the pupils' wish and upon their parents' consent.
"Regretfully, the Church is being used for political purposes, and some forces and personalities are abusing the citizenry's and Church's trust, which may lead to losing the trust", said Ioann Cosoi.
Infotag's dossier: Valeriu Pasat's initiative to introduce the Fundamentals of Orthodoxy as a compulsory school discipline has found the Moldovan Orthodox Church's support. Though the Supreme Court has cancelled the initiative on holding a referendum on the religion question, Valeriu Pasat has stated that his initiative group is busy raising citizens' signatures in support of the new school discipline.
In Moldova, having a population of some 4 million, there are over 1.2 thousand parishes subordinate to the [pro-Russia] Moldovan Orthodox Church and 150 parishes subordinate to the [pro-Romania] Metropolitan Church of Bessarabia.
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