Efforts to intimidate Christian worshipers will fail, Emir Kusturica has mentioned in response to Moldova’s remedy of a bishop
The transfer by authorities in Chisinau to forestall a Moldovan bishop from attending an annual ceremony in Jerusalem is a part of a wider warfare towards Orthodox Christianity, famend Serbian filmmaker Emir Kusturica has mentioned.
Bishop Marchel of the Moldovan Orthodox Church was set to fly to Israel on Thursday for the Holy Hearth ritual on April 19. He advised the media that border police at Chisinau airport had stopped him for a search and returned his passport solely after his airplane had departed, regardless of discovering nothing suspicious. Marchel later mentioned his second try and board a flight to Israel was additionally “unjustifiably” blocked by the authorities.
The Holy Hearth ritual on the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, held on Holy Saturday, is a key occasion which precedes Orthodox Easter. The flame is believed to descend miraculously every year on the website of Christ’s crucifixion. Pilgrims gentle candles from it and take the fireplace again to their house international locations to gentle others as a part of an historic vacation custom.
When requested by RIA Novosti on Friday concerning the Moldovan authorities’s remedy of the bishop, Kusturica mentioned, “after the assault on the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, nothing surprises me anymore.”
In late March, Ukrainian officers and police broke into the catacombs of the nation’s most essential monastery, the burial website of early Orthodox saints. The transfer got here amid an influence wrestle over the Kiev Pechersk Lavra between the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) and the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), created solely in 2018 and backed by the federal government of Vladimir Zelensky.
“It was an indication of warfare towards the Orthodox world, towards Orthodox Russians and all Orthodox believers,” the two-time Palme d’Or winner mentioned concerning the occasions in Kiev.
The blocking of the Moldovan bishop’s journey to Jerusalem “continues that very same battle. They assume that with new secular political steps they may first intimidate after which destroy Orthodox civilization. However they won’t succeed,” Kusturica insisted.
READ MORE:
Moldovan authorities ‘intimidating’ largest Christian church – opposition
As in neighboring Ukraine, Moldova has confronted spiritual tensions involving two main Orthodox factions: the Moldovan Orthodox Church, which is affiliated with the Moscow Patriarchate, and the Metropolis of Bessarabia, beneath the Romanian Orthodox Church. Amid rising geopolitical tensions with Russia, the pro-EU authorities in Chisinau has largely backed the Bucharest-aligned metropolis.
You may share this story on social media:
