MAGADAN AUTHORITIES TO SACK BELIEVERS?
by Roman Lunkin, Keston News Service
The authorities in Magadan are putting members of the Word of Life
church employed by the state under great pressure to choose between
their faith and their job, the church's pastor NIKOLAI VOSKOBOINIKO
told Keston News Service on 11 February.
As an example Voskoboinikov cited the case of ZINAIDA SAVINA, a
church member who is employed as head of the statistics committee of
Magadan region: 'The governor is accusing her of preaching at work,
while in reality she is simply an honest person'. However, so far no
church member has yet been sacked from his job, the pastor admitted.
Voskoboinikov believes that the situation for the church members will
get worse if the court decision due in March goes against the church.
There are also articles in the local press attacking the church. The
pastor maintains that the authorities were making use of the
nationalist parties in the region - the National Bolshevik Party and
Russian National Unity - to hold public demonstrations against the
Pentecostals.
The lawyer and human rights activist VLADIMIR RYAKHOVSKY told Keston
that there was constant pressure on church members who worked in
state institutions. He said that he trusted that Savina would not be
sacked, as there were no grounds for it. He believes that the
pressure from the authorities would not increase even if the court
ruled against the Word of Life church in March. At the moment,
Ryakhovsky declared, real pressure was being exerted by, among
others, the National Bolsheviks, who he said were receiving indirect
help from the procuracy.
However, the deputy governor of the Magadan region, ANTONINA LUKINA,
denies any instances of pressure on church members who work in state
institutions. She told Keston that the administration of the region
had no reasons to do so. As for the head of the statistics committee
Zinaida Savina, Lukina declared that the committee was a federal, not
a regional institution and that therefore the governor and other
officials of the region could not influence her fate.
However, Savina herself told Keston that the governor had sent
documents to Moscow claiming that she had been preaching at work and
that she herself had sacked non-believers. Savina affirmed that she
had never done any such thing. `They simply do not know what is going
on here. Let them come and talk to the people who work here,' she
said. Now she has constant visits from commissions sent by the
administration to check up, while the tax service is asking employees
of the committee about their faith. Savina declares that only 10 out
of 200 employees of the statistics committee are members of the Word
of Life church. `None of the officials can even give the names of
those I am supposed to have sacked, as it is all untrue,' she
stressed. On 7 February Savina received an ultimatum from the head of
the personnel department of the State Committee for Statistics in
Moscow, VIKTOR USPENSKY. She said that he had told her that she
should choose between her work and her faith and that she was being
discharged from the committee. He added 'that the Word of Life church
is a Swedish plague, and its pastor is a criminal', Savina said.
When Keston rang Uspensky, he refused to comment on the situation.
(END)
Wednesday 24 February
RESOLUTION OF ROMANIAN CHURCH PROPERTY CONFLICT IN SIGHT?
by Janice Broun, Keston News Service
The most burning issue in Romanian church life, the dispute over the
return of churches from the Orthodox to the Greek Catholic Church, is at
last being tackled by a joint commission for dialogue between the two
churches. In 1948 the communist government suppressed the Greek
Catholic Church and appropriated all its property. Over 2000 churches
and parishes were handed over to the Orthodox. Although a minority of
Greek Catholics maintained their religious life in catacomb conditions
the great majority had no choice but to continue worshipping in their
own parish churches, now Orthodox, and so many lost their distinct Greek
Catholic identity.
After CEAUSESCU'S fall, in response to demands for restitution from the
re-emergent Greek Catholics, the Orthodox set up a mixed joint
commission in April 1990 to decide disputed cases. However, this never
functioned, since the Orthodox had possession of the former Catholic
Churches and-with the notable exception of METROPOLITAN NICOLAE
CORNEANU
of the Banat which contains the Greek Catholic Lugoj diocese-they hung
on to them. By 1998, Catholics in theory had 1416 parishes and 734
dependent communities but in practice had recovered only 136 churches as
against 1,936 still unrecovered. They had been forced to build 87 new
ones. Under ION ILIESCU's neocommunist government the Greek Catholics
had no hope of obtaining justice but with Iliescu's downfall in the 1997
elections and the arrival of a more democratic and sympathetic
government they pressed their claims. Since they had recived no formal
redress from the Orthodox Church they were forced to resort to civil
courts, a method roundly condemned by the Orthodox Church, whose
national Synod in February 1998 proposed bilateral dialogue with the
Greek Catholics to settle disputed property. It is reported as
condemning any attempt to involve political forces in the disputes
as'inopportune and absolutely detrimental to peaceful relations between
religious communities in Transylvania.'
In the case of their former Cathedral in Cluj, the Greek Catholics
reoccupation when the Orthodox refused to vacate it on 13 March led to
stormy scenes and heated accusations from the Orthodox (see �Continuing
Conflict over Return of Romanian Church Property� KNS July 1998).
In some villages in the impoverished northern backwoods province of
Maramures, a traditional Catholic stronghold where most villages were 95
per cent Greek Catholic, Orthodox continued to employ acts of violence
to intimidate local Catholics. According to the Brussels-based DROITS DE
L'HOMME SANS FRONTIERES, In Botiza, 30 km from Sighet, following a
successful Catholic court case for restitution the Orthodox prevented
the legal official from formally handing over their church on 7 May. At
least three Catholics were beaten up. On 25 June a further incident
occurred when Catholics tried, unsuccessfully, to reoccupy the building,
while the police stood by. In Saliste, 45km from Sighet, the local
authorities opposed the recreation of their parish and publicly insulted
their priest VASILE HOTICO. In Breb near Ocna Sugatag one of the two
churches was originally Greek Catholic and the other built in the 1980s
by the Orthodox, with Greek Catholic contributions, but Catholics could
only celebrate Mass in the yard of a private house. On 1 and 8 March
they celebrated Mass undisturbed in the old church which had remained
unused since the new one was opened the previous autumn. After that,
Orthodox dean POP GAVRILA from Sighet incited local Orthodox to bar
access to their church. Catholic priest CALIN HOSU received an
intimidatory letter and was threatened directly by two Orthodox at his
door on 18 March. On 25-26 March his bedroom windows were broken by
unidentified vandals.
Although in these cases the Orthodox appear to have been culpable, Greek
Catholics have not been blameless either and in some places have reacted
violently under provocation. Ome witness of the protest march of 3000
Orthodox priests through Cluj on 20 March said on Radio Cluj on 23 March
that the skeletons of Catholic martyrs were dangling around their necks.
Describing them as the most sinister uniform of the Romanian Securitate
(secret police) he said, 'God does not pour his Grace into dirty
containers; the priests who have spoiled the holy mystery of confession
which they should have defended with their own lives are further from
the Christian faith than Satan himself. The church which contains these
and does not eject them like rotten teeth is in their own image.' When
on 17 May PRESIDENT EMIL CONSTANTINESCU paid tribute to those Orthodox
and Catholic priests who had understood the importance of the unity of
Romanians and pleaded for further reconciliation, he was interrupted by
angry Greek Catholics shouting 'We want our churches back!' Even AGRU,
the (lay) General Association of Romanian Greek Catholics, which
represents more conciliatory elements, cannot deny the sufferings of the
past. Orthodox collaboration in the attempted annihilation of their
Church left a legacy of bitterness. In its open letter �to our Orthodox
brethren� it compares the booing which greeted Catholic ARCHBISHOP
GEORGE GUTIU in front of his own cathedral with the humiliation of its
martyr BISHOP IULIU HOSSU and that of Christ himself. 'But what hurts us
most is the fact that those who were capable of booing a bishop are the
future priests of the year 2000. Are these the perspectives for the
third millennium?'
When PRIME MINISTER RADU VASILE visited Rome on 6 July with his
official government invitation to POPE JOHN PAUL to visit Romania next
May he regretted that it was not accompanied by a similar invitation
from the Orthodox Church. On 9 July PATRIARCH TEOCTIST ARAPAS
reproached Greek Catholics for putting stumbling blocks in the way of
normal relations between the two Churches and, explicitly, the papal
visit. Nevertheless on 15-16 July Teoctist expressed his readiness to
welcome the Pope and the Orthodox Holy Synod stressed that
regularisation of relationships between Orthodox and Greek Catholics was
an essential prerequisite for it. Unofficial consultations between the
Bucharest Patriarchate and the Vatican would start during the autumn.
The Synod proposed a mixed Orthodox-Catholic commission to prepare for
the papal visit. The flourishing Romanian Roman Catholic Church, the
second largest Church in the country, is also involved but because it
largely consits of Hungarian and German national minorities rather than
Romanians, its relations with the Orthodox Church are less
problematical.
Meanwhile the ground was being laid for high level inter-church
cooperation by a number of projects, largely promoted by the WCC, with
representatives of all recognised Churches present. The Metropolitanate
of Moldavia held an Ecumenical Conference on Dialogue and Cooperation in
Iasi on 27-30 April. A symposium on the renewal of urban mission was
hosted by the Orthodox Church on 4-6 May. Most significant was that
organised by the prestigious Italian St Egidio Community from 29 August
to 2 September in Bucharest on 'Mankind and Religion for Peace.'
Teoctist attended Mass in the Latin-Rite Church; METROPOLITAN NESTOR OF
OLTENIE and ARCHBISHOP THEOFAN attended the Greek Catholic liturgy and a
number of Catholic bishops of both rites were present at the open-air
Orthodox liturgy in front of the Patriarchal Cathedral. In an
outstanding contribution, particularly relevant to the local situation,
ARCHBISHOP ANASTASIOS of Tirana, a Greek who has led the reconstruction
of the Albanian Orthodox Church, pleaded for dialogue pursued with
simplicity, honesty and humility and for tolerance between religions. He
emphasised that Orthodoxy possesses sufficient theological foundations
not to be afraid of encounter with other faiths. He reminded them of
JESUS's encounters with the Samaritan and Canaanite women and the Roman
centurion. 'We must not confine ouselves to occasions of dialogue which
in essence are only well-prepared monologues. We need to devote more
time and resources to promoting genuine encounters, more spontaneity,
more real friendship, in order to climb out of the ghettoes of our
traditional socio-religious groups.' Commenting, AGRU president VIORICA
LASCU told Keston, 'The Orthodox always were double-faced in ecumenical
relations;one, conciliatory, abroad and the other fundamentalist within
Romania. But now they publicly declare they are open for discussions and
concessions. We shall see.' She attributed their desire for peace partly
to growing shame among Orthodox intellectuals.
The Commission for Dialogue held its first official session from 28-30
October in Bucharest under the co-presidency of METROPOLITAN DANIEL
CIOBOTEA OF MOLDAVIA and MGR. LUCIAN MURESAN, BISHOP OF
MARAMURES, in the presence of Vatican representative MGR. PIO
TAMBURINO. The two Churches undertook to bring their quarrels over restitution
to an end.
They pledged to 'renounce the forcible occupation of churches,
employment of civil courts, use of polemical language in the media and
all forms of proselytism�. They called administrators of their two
Churches to examine case-by-case situations where alternative services
could be celebrated in the same church-a suggestion made back in 1990
but never implemented. 'What we urgently need now is to foster an
atmosphere of mutual trust,' they stressed. 'This is a historic moment
for our two Churches and the Romanian nation,' Muresan affirmed.
Tamburino, drawing attention to previous tendentious official
declarations from both Churches, believes the meeting signals an
improvement in the religious climate.
The Orthodox submitted a document formulated at a preparatory session
which laid down guiding principles. These, they said, must take into
account each local situation. So they must be based on a preliminary
survey of the exact number of Greek Catholic churches in relation to
their numbers; an audit of ecclesiastical property given back by the
state, whether to Catholics or Orthodox; and an assessment of which
communities had a realistic possibility of building new churches.
Following this survey, in places where there was a dispute over
property, churches should be assigned to the community with the most
members. The minority should be urged to construct a new church, and in
the case of the Greek Catholics these should be subsidised by the Roman
Catholics and Orthodox. In localities with several churches or where
there is a substantial Catholic community administrators of Orthodox
dioceses and parishes will be consulted as to the possibility of
allotting one of these churches to the Greek Catholics. In cities where
the number of places of worship is in general insufficient for the
density of population, the two Churches will each build new ones.
These proposals were definitely to the advantage of the Orthodox Church,
since in many parishes, particularly in villages, Greek Catholics had
lost their former identity. After 1989, the still active Securitate,
often in tandem with Orthodox clergy, many of whom were agents, employed
deplorable and widespread intimidation of those who demanded the return
of their original churches; even where there were two churches, in many
cases they kept the Catholic church locked. In such an atmosphere of
fear thousands of Greek Catholics were too terrified to identify their
religious allegiance in the censuses, let alone demand their churches
back. In the 1991 census only 200,000 declared themselves Greek
Catholic. By 1997 the situation had improved and 761,000 identified
themselves, but this still represented only half of their 1948 numbers,
around one and a half million. In many places including Cluj its members
had to worship in the open air in all weathers. Only one cathedral,
Lugoj, was restored to them voluntarily; they regained Cluj and Baia
Mare only after years of struggle. They had been forced to build 87 new
churches, often, complained Lascu, next to their own old buildings,
which the Orthodox kept locked. With 669 priests, mostly from their
reopened seminaries, but including some Orthodox who had switched back,
the need for places of worship for effective parish life had not been
met. In its letter AGRU points out: 'Jesus said "Give to Caesar what
belongs to Caesar". We are to obey the law not only when it puts you in
possession of goods stolen from others, but also when it obliges you to
return them.''With 90 per cent of the population Orthodox, for the
public authority it is also an electoral problem,' Lascu told
Keston.'Therefore the state did not interfere and the tribunal's
decisions, if favourable to us, are rarely executed.'
The Orthodox establishment justifies its stance on historical grounds:
until the end of the sixteenth century all Romanians in Transylvania
were Orthodox, before they were virtually compelled to become Catholic.
Thus, they argue, they were justified in collaborating with the
communist government in 1948 because it 'enabled' Greek Catholics to
return to their original faith. This view is not shared by all Orthodox;
Metropolitan Nicolae expressed the views of many when in 1996 he
publicly apologised for his Church's complicity in the suppression of
the Greek Catholics and expressed his deep admiration for Catholic
witness under dire persecution in prisons and labour camps. The leading
dissident Doina Cornea, also a Greek Catholic, told Keston in 1991 that
Corneanu was a good friend. AGRU, in its letter tells the Orthodox of
their own priests who 'refused to take away the Uniate parishes from
their brothers, alongside whom they shepherded their people and suffered
dark years under foreign occupation. Ecumenism was possible in the
gaols. Today our hopes are raised by the shining example of Metropolitan
Corneanu.' But Lascu stresses that he is the only metropolitan who has
proceded with restitution. Yet many leading Orthodox denounce Corneanu
as being out on a limb and try to discredit him. It is noteworthy that
it was also Corneanu who had the courage publicly to admit and repent of
his Church's past links with the Securitate-and his own. He touched a
raw nerve.
The proposal that Greek Catholics be assisted to build new churches
represents a positive step. The Roman Catholic Church, as the Church of
the richer Hungarian and German minorities who ruled Transylvania, was
traditionally better endowed and did not suffer complete suppression
under communism. The Greek Catholic community, emerging from the
catacombs impoverished, has been prevented from recovering most of its
other property and assets which could have provided some income.
Orthodox obstruction has forced it to spend money unnecessarily on new
buildings so the Orthodox proposal that they too should be involved
could be a tacit admittance of their culpablity.
The next session will deal with the practical application of the
commission's principles, case by case, in each diocese. Its work is due
to be completed at Blaj, the traditional centre of the Greek Catholic
Church, at the end of January. What success it will have in some of the
hotly contested parishes where local officials are unchanged remains to
be seen. 'These instances of deliberate provocation are still too
frequent,' Lascu told Keston. 'I think the good God will decide, not
men. We hope God will enlighten the hearts of all the participants. We
are still on our Via Crucis. Our bishops, priests and lay people who
between them passed more than 600 years in prison are not prepared to
abandon the faith they conserved with so much courage.' To quote the
open letter she helped to write, 'Corruption is widespread at all levels
and people's hearts are filled with hatred. Only by cooperating will
Orthodox and Uniates be able to stop the onslaught of Satan and restore
to our nation its Christian soul. We are all Romanians and equally
obliged to lift up our homeland from the state in which it was left
after half a century of communism. It is precisely the enemies of our
nation who are trying to divide us. We must not let ourselves be drawn
into this trap.' (END)