
The Ministry of Education violates school children’s constitutional right to freedom of religion by refusing to schedule a school break during Holy Week, conservative media claims.
NEWS: Yes, as usual, we’re dealing with new problems, new blows below the belt from the Ministry of Education, directly targeting people engaged in the educational process, children in particular. And we’re not talking about the novelties it introduced in the last two years, which, although they were much criticized in the pre-university environment, we got stuck with whether we liked it or not, but rather about the constitutional right to freedom of religion. [...] What is the Minister of Education doing this year? First of all, she no longer subjects the draft structure of the 2024 - 2025 school year to public debate and proceeds directly to passing the decree – Minister’s Decree no. 3694. Yes, apparently a certain period of the Easter holidays is observed, that is, a school break is scheduled for April 21-27, 2025, that is, ONLY FOR EASTER WEEK. [...] Now, pupils are disallowed from taking part in masses in Holy Week, although the profound pedagogical character of these unique year-long masses is well known from all points of view. This year, we must tell them that they are not allowed to go to Church, as teachers used to tell us before 1989. Then, we had to abide by the orders from the Communist Party. Now, we must observe decree no. 3694 passed by Ligia Deca. OR NOT! [...] Therefore, in the face of the minister’s infringements on the religious rights of students, we have no way to defend them except through other means. If in so-called educated Romania, children are not allowed to go to church, we will not stand idly by.
NARRATIVE: Romanian pupils will be forbidden to participate in religious masses in the week before Easter, just like during the communist era.
Masses are held outside class hours
WHY THE NARRATIVE IS FALSE: According to legislation in force, the structure of the school year is established based on considerations that take into account learning cycles, the structuring of the curriculum, etc., not just the religious calendar, even if this is also a factor (not decisive, at any rate) when planning school holidays. Thus, a Romanian school year is structured in five modules of seven weeks each. For this reason, the break around the Easter holidays happened to take place in the week after Easter, during the period Christians call Easter Week.
The period before Easter, Holy Week or Passion Week, as it is known among Christians, is when Orthodox churches hold religious services devoted to this event, considered the greatest Christian holiday. These special services (Denii) are held both during Holy Week and during the “Great Easter Lent”, which lasts for six weeks. Simplified variants of these services are celebrated, however, also in Catholic or Protestant churches.
Services during Holy Week attract most Orthodox believers and are celebrated in churches starting Palm Sunday, that is, the last Sunday before Easter, until Friday. Such services are usually celebrated in the evening, after 6-7 P.M. The most important services are those on Thursday and Friday. The one on Thursday evening has as specific elements, the reading of the 12 Gospels of the passions and the display of the Holy Cross in the middle of the church. The Good Friday evening service differs from the others, as this is when a special requiem is sung the, and churchgoers surround the church with the Holy Epitaph (a stitch or painting depicting the entombment of Jesus Christ).
Given the particular significance of these two services, the authorities declared Friday (the day of Christ's crucifixion) a national holiday. Therefore, all believers, not just pupils, can take part in the two major services of the Easter Lent without restrictions, because the day after Good Friday is also a non-working day. Moreover, bearing in mind that all Holy Week services are celebrated in the evening, no pupil can claim they were prevented from attending the service.
All in all, the narrative that Romanian students being denied the right to religion is nonsensical. There is simply no law in Romania that can rationally be interpreted of doing so. Moreover, the national school curriculum includes Religion as a subject matter. Religion remains an optional subject precisely in order to observe the religious freedom of any individual. However, statistics published by the Education Ministry shows that the number of people who take up Religion in school is decreasing, evidence that the statements that claim that Romanian pupils are extremely interested in religion and the Church are, in fact, mere exaggerations. In addition, sociological studies carried out over the years show that, although an overwhelming majority of the Romanian population identify themselves as Christian, regardless of denomination, just a little over 20% of believers attend mass on a regular basis, and the share among school children does not differ from the one reported at national level – on the contrary, it tends to be lower.
Orthodoxy besieged by Satan - the typical pretext for stirring civil unrest
BACKGROUND: In Romania, a country with strong religious and conservative views, marked over time by tendencies bordering extremism, the last three years have represented a genuine fake news fiesta, many of the narratives originating in Moscow, some invoking a so-called global (and national) assault on the Church and Christianity. In January 2023, for example, one narrative that circulated claimed that a woman in the UK had been arrested for silently praying. Along similar lines, about a year later, the defenders of Christianity in Romania announced that in Canada, Christians will be condemned for quoting the Bible, and recently, amplifying anti-Christian and homophobic rhetoric, that the Romanian authorities punish Christian believers, while in Ireland a teacher was arrested for her religious beliefs.
Over the years, Veridica dismantled several false narratives about alleged links between school, children and anti-Orthodox propaganda, which claimed that Romanian pupils are forced to watch pro-homosexuality propaganda films, and as a result of the education received in schools, they will not you still know what gender they are and what species they belong to. Still in the same vein of demonizing the West, and borrowing narrative elements from the international conservative spectrum, some narratives in Romania stated that the World Health Organization is pursuing the sexual mutilation of children, or that, in the USA, Catholic Easter has become Transgender Day. Almost any event, no matter how insignificant, can be linked to the “persecution of Christians”, through ambiguous and allusive wording or omissions.
It should also be noted that one of the main narratives of the propaganda war waged by Moscow against the EU and NATO states that the West is “morally decadent and has strayed from Christian values”, a space at odds with traditional, Christian, Orthodox values allegedly embodied by Russia.
PURPOSE: To erode trust in state authorities, to promote ultra-religious and anti-Western rhetoric, to generate anti-establishment mass movements.
Check sources: