Romanian Parliament reads a call for help from Romanian-speaking UOC parishes

The Romanian MP read out in Parliament the appeal of the Romanian-speaking communities of the UOC with a request for help. Photo: screenshot of the FB page of Dumitru Viorel Focșa

On April 26, 2023, in the Romanian Parliament, MP Dumitru Viorel Focșa read out an appeal from the Romanian-speaking communities of the UOC with a call for help. The deputy posted a video message on his Facebook page.

The appeal submitted to the head of the Chamber of Deputies of Romania, as well as to the State Secretary of the Department for Romanians, says that the Ukrainian authorities in Chernivtsi are preparing to take away the land belonging to the temples of the UOC, groundlessly accusing the Church of having ties with Moscow.

“Unfortunately, the authorities of Northern Bukovyna, which is a multinational region, cloned the decisions taken in other regions, other cities and mono-ethnic lands of Ukraine. Churches that did not want to break away from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church risk losing the land they have served for decades. As a result, the Romanians may lose a number of their churches," the report says. “The churches of our ancestors, some built with church funds or money from the Romanian state, will no longer belong to the Romanian community for reasons that are difficult to explain and understand.”

The authors of the appeal request the Romanian authorities: parliamentarians, senators, ministers, state secretaries, state leaders to intervene so that the Ukrainian authorities do not make decisions against the Romanian community and its churches.

"We demand immediate consultations with members of the Romanian society – parishioners, priests, association leaders, think tanks, before making any decisions about the fate of places of worship that are of historical and cultural value to us," the authors of the appeal say.

Earlier, the UOJ wrote that according to the Romanian deputy, what the Ukrainian authorities are doing with the UOC is complete madness.

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